We
used three different platforms for comparison in our
tests, a Pentium 3 i815E setup, a Athlon/T-Bird
KT133 setup and the Pentium 4 i850 setup sent to us
by Intel. Here are the specifics for each.
|
Hot
Hardware Test Systems |
Three
amigos... |
|
Intel Pentium 4 Test
System:
-
Intel
D850GB i850 Motherboard, Pentium 4 Processor @
1.5GHz.,
-
256MB
of Samsung PC800 RAMBUS DRDRAM,
-
IBM
DTLA307045 45Gig ATA100 7200 RPM Hard Drive,
-
nVidia
GeForce 2 Ultra 64MB AGP Graphics Card,
-
Intel
100tx PCI NIC, 56K PCI Modem
-
Sound
Blaster Live Sound Card,
-
Hitachi
DVD ROM Drive,
-
Windows98SE
(used for gaming benchmarks), Windows 2000Pro
(used for Productivity and some Quake3
benchmarks),
-
Direct
X 8.0 (Direct X 7.0 used only for 3DMark Tests)
and nVidia reference drivers version 6.31
-
Intel
chipset drivers version 2.60
Hot
Hardware Pentium 3 Reference System:
-
Abit
SA6R i815E Motherboard, Pentium 3 Processor @
1GHz.,
-
256MB
of Corsair PC133 SDRAM
-
IBM
DTLA307045 45Gig ATA100 7200 RPM Hard Drive
(thanks to Outside
Loop!)
-
nVidia
GeForce 2 Ultra 64MB AGP Graphics Card,
-
Netgear
10/100 PCI NIC, 56K PCI Modem
-
Sound
Blaster Live Sound Card,
-
Pioneer
10X DVD ROM,
-
Windows98SE
(used for gaming benchmarks), Windows 2000Pro
(used for Productivity and some Quake3
benchmarks),
-
Direct
X 8.0 (Direct X 7.0 used only for 3DMark Tests)
and nVidia reference drivers version 6.31
-
Intel
chipset drivers version 2.60
Hot
Hardware Athlon (T-Bird) Reference System:
-
Abit
KT7-RAID Motherboard, Athlon Processor @
1GHz.,
-
256MB
of Corsair PC133 SDRAM
-
IBM
DTLA307045 45Gig ATA100 7200 RPM Hard Drive
(thanks to Outside
Loop!)
-
nVidia
GeForce 2 Ultra 64MB AGP Graphics Card,
-
Netgear
10/100 PCI NIC, 56K PCI Modem
-
Sound
Blaster Live Sound Card,
-
Pioneer
10X DVD ROM,
-
Windows98SE
(used for gaming benchmarks), Windows 2000Pro
(used for Productivity and some Quake3
benchmarks),
-
Direct
X 8.0 (Direct X 7.0 used only for 3DMark Tests)
and nVidia reference drivers version 6.31
-
VIA
chipset drivers version 4.25
Well
now, typically our system spec lists are not that
long but it is important to know how a test is setup
so that you can make meaningful comparisons with the
scores you'll see shortly. With three full
systems on the bench, the hardware list gets long.
|
SiSoft
Sandra Benchmarks / Comparison |
You'll
need version 7.10 Sandra Professional
2001 for accurate P4 scores. |
|
We
are very pleased to be able to show you this next
series of tests in the proper light. Since the
Pentium 4 was first rolled out in prototype
quantities, SiSoft
Sandra scores have been popping up on the net
with numbers taken from the P4 and they are
completely erroneous. Older versions of Sandra
2000 (those before the release of Sandra 2001
version 7.10), don't recognize the P4 correctly and
misreport its performance dramatically. We
have done tests in this section with SiSoft's Sandra
2001 which now supports the Pentium 4.
Sandra
2001 CPU Performance Test (click all images)
Pentium
4 1.5GHz.
|
Pentium
3 1GHz.
|
Athlon
1GHz.
|
Integer
performance of the Pentium 4 is shown as only
marginally better than that of the 1GHz. Athlon or
Pentium 3. However, Floating point performance
of the P4 is about 25% higher than either system in
this test.
Sandra
2001 Multimedia Performance Test
Pentium
4 1.5GHz.
|
Pentium
3 1GHz.
|
Athlon
1GHz.
|
Here
we begin to see one of the P4's strong suits.
New SSE2 instructions accelerate the P4 past the P3
and Athlon in this test, by approximately 8 to
12%.
Sandra
2001 System Memory Bandwidth Performance
Pentium
4 1.5GHz.
|
Pentium
3 1GHz.
|
Athlon
1 GHz.
|
This
test within the Sandra benchmark suite measure the
entire system's memory bandwidth and performance not
just actual DRAM performance. Here the P4's
"Quad Pumped" Dual Channel RAMBUS
subsystem that feeds the 1.5GHz. core of the CPU,
totally crushes the other two systems. Memory
bandwidth is no longer an issue for the Pentium
architecture. On a side note, in case you
weren't keeping tabs on the price of RAMBUS memory,
a 128MB PC600 RIMM now sells for about $120 on
search engines like Pricewatch.
Intel needs RAMBUS to be affordable for the P4 to
succeed in the first half of 2001. Later in
the second half of 2001, we are aware that a PC133
implementation of the P4 might be in the
works. The fate of RAMBUS is still a little
foggy but seeing it utilized here and boasting these
types of numbers, the picture clears somewhat.
Perhaps this only adds to the confusion for some?
OK,
let's move out from the synthetic to more "real
world" application benchmarks.
Intel's
Application Launcher, Winstone 2001 and more
|