Pentium 4 670 3.8GHz Performance Profile

To get this next batch of results, we used Veritest's Content Creation Winstone 2004 suite.  Before running these benchmarks, we patched the program to its latest version (v1.01), shut down any unnecessary background processes, and defragged the hard drive.

Content Creation Winstone 2004 Real-World Application Performance

The Veritest Content Creation Winstone 2004 test utilizes the following applications in its benchmark routine. For more information about this test, see this page:

• Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1
• Adobe Premiere 6.50
• Macromedia Director MX 9.0
• Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 6.1
• Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9 Version 9.00.00.2980
• NewTek's LightWave 3D 7.5b
• Steinberg WaveLab 4.0f

The Athlon 64 systems handily sweep this test, which is heavily dependant on raw CPU throughput.  While some of its tests, such as Windows Media Encoder, enjoy the benefits of multithreading and are heavily SSE optimized, other tests such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, and Dreamweaver, thrive on the high IPC and memory bandwidth of the Athlons. The new Pentium 4 670 comes in just ahead of the Dual Core 840 and slightly behind the 1066MHz FSB-based Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz processor.  While the EE and 670 have identical core architectures (although the 670 is clocked a few MHz faster than the 3.73GHz EE), its 800MHz FSB holds it back somewhat in this test versus its Extreme Ed. sibling, but the variance is negligible.

PC World's World Bench Office XP Module More Real-World Application Performance

PC World Magazine's WorldBench 5.0 is a new breed of Business and Professional application benchmark, poised to replace the aging and no-longer supported Winstone tests in our benchmark arsenal. WorldBench 5.0 consists of a number of performance modules that each utilize one or a group of popular applications to gauge performance.  Below we have the results from WB 5's Office XP module, recorded in seconds.  Lower times indicate better performance.

In our WorldBench 5 Office XP test, clock speed plays a more significant role within the various architectures.  As such, the new Pentium 4 670 comes out on top, followed closely by the 3.7GHz Pentium 4 EE within a narrow 1-2% margin.  From there it's a close race between the two dual-core CPUs, with the new Athlon 64 X2 edging out the 3.2GHz Pentium Extreme Edition 840 CPU.  In this case, the multi-tasking strength of dual-core architectures certainly helps, but clearly Hyper-Threading is enough to push the P4s ahead in conjunction with their higher clock speeds.