Test Results:
First up we have of course SiSoft Sandra MAX3!. This is a suite of synthetic benchmarks for testing various system components. We will use the CPU, MultiMedia and Memory Bandwidth modules.
In the MultiMedia benchmark we see the P4 streak ahead of the other two contenders. This isn't too surprising when you consider that the P4 has HT, essentially making it an SMP system with two virtual processors. In the CPU benchmark we see the trend less so for ALU, but in FLT the AMD chips come on strong. The AthlonXP did not return an iSSE2 result because it doesn't support this feature. It's hard to draw an overall conclusion from this first benchmark, with some conflicting results.
In this memory benchmark test, the AthlonXP is left far behind while the Athlon 64 FX and P4 are well ahead and fairly evenly matched. Remember than in our testbed configuration the P4 is running the memory at 400MHz, synchronous to its FSB, while the Athlon 64 FX and AthlonXP are running 333MHz. Despite this, the figures are still very close with the P4 having a slight lead.
The first real-world benchmark we use is the POV-Ray 3.5 benchmark. This is a ray-tracing application which is very CPU intensive.
Here we see the P4 dominating again. POV-Ray is not multi-threading, so we are not seeing the effect of HT here. Curiously, the AthlonXP beats its more recent sibling the Athlon 64 FX. This is possibly an optimisation issue with POV-Ray and the Athlon 64 FX.
Another real-world benchmark is Ziff-Davis's Content Creation Winstone 2002. This uses a range of applications including Adobe Photoshop, Netscape Navigator and Macromedia Dreamweaver, scripted and performing common application tasks. This therefore provides an indicator of how a system would perform for day-to-day and intensive application use. There is a 2003 version now, but this benchmark is huge and ships only on CD - we only have the 2002 version here at the moment.
Here it's the Athlon 64 FX that surprises, leaping to the front. Even the AthlonXP fares well over the P4 in this test.
This CPU is apparently aimed largely at the gaming market. We have a look at real-world gaming in the form of Comanche 4, which provides a DirectX 8.1 benchmark. This plays a scene of a helicopter flying around and shooting things, just as in the game, and thus gives an indication of in-game performance.
Again in this real-world benchmark the Athlon 64 FX fares extremely well, beating the P4 which in turn is substantially quicker than the AthlonXP.
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
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