Related story in english: Review of the new Athlon with DDR-SDRAM.
Latest sales figures for the CPU business tell one thing very clearly: AMDs Athlon eats quite something out of Intels pie. Even the readers of tecChannel.de follow along these lines. In a recent survey with over 1300 participants more than 80 percent stated their next system will be powered by an Athlon.
Even before throwing the first benchmark at Intels new CPU it is clear who runs the highest clockspeed after November 20, 2000: Intel launches the Pentium 4 at 1400 and 1500 MHz, while Athlon only recently reached 1200 MHz. As already reported by tecChannel.de AMD demoed an Athlon at 1500MHz at Comdex, but it only was a prototype that will go into production in four months at the earliest.
But there's more to it than clockspeed. In our test we compared the new Pentium 4 to its now little brother Pentium III and the Athlon. In addition to the shipping clockspeed we can also give you all the benchmarks for a Pentium 4 running at 1600 MHz.
Our special report Details on the Pentium 4 .will provide you with all the further details of the new technology of Pentium 4. Unfortunately this feature will only be available in German for the time being, please bear with us. Our international readers may however turn to the functional schematics of this new microprocessor.
Pricing and Availability
Pentium 4 is not at all sold at a cheap rate. Even the "entry level version" at 1400 MHz already ranges round about 644 US-Dollars, which is very much the same price level as for the Athlon 1200.
Clockspeed [MHz] | Athlon 200/266 FSB | Pentium III | Pentium 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
Prices given for units of 1000 CPUs for OEMs as of November 16, 2000. | |||
1500 | -- | -- | 819 |
1400 | -- | -- | 644 |
1200 | 612/673 | -- | -- |
1133 | 506 (FSB 266) | -- | -- |
1100 | 460 (FSB 200) | -- | -- |
1000 | 350/385 | 465 | -- |
950 | 282 (FSB 200) | -- | -- |
933 | -- | 348 | -- |
900 | 215 (FSB 200) | -- | -- |
866 | -- | 241 | -- |
850 | 193 (FSB 200) | 241 | -- |
800 | -- | 193 | -- |
Considering a Pentium 4 one also has to make expensive RDRAM part of the calculation, and this makes up for the very high price of a Pentium 4 system. Dell's Dimension 8100 is available for a whopping 3398 Dollars with a 19 inch CRT, GeForce2 Ultra graphics, 128 MBytes of RDRAM a CD writer and a DVD drive.
Benchmark considerations
Two Pentium 4 parts hit our lab. The first one was supplied by Intel together with their own motherboard D850GB (Garribaldi). According to the chip maker all components were at production level. Dell's Dimension 8100 barely made it for this review. We took the chance and compared its results to Intel's setup. As there was no significant difference to Intel's system, we can state that these review systems were not tuned in any way.
To make the diagrams more readable we marked the CPUs as follows:
Pentium 4 1x00: Pentium 4 at 400 MHz FS and 256 MByte PC800-DRDRAM
Pentium III 1000 PC133: Pentium III at 133 MHz FSB and 256 MByte PC133-SDRAM
Pentium III 1000 PC800: Pentium III at 133 MHz FSB and 256 MByte PC800-DRDRAM
Athlon 1x00-200: Athlon at 200 MHz FSB and 256 MByte PC133-SDRAM
Athlon 1200-266: Athlon at 266 MHz FSB and 256 MByte und 256 MByte PC266-DDR-SDRAM
All CPUs were socket versions, i.e. based on the Coppermine core for the Pentium III and the Thunderbird core for the Athlon. We ran all the benchmarks using the final version of DirectX 8.0. The numbers given for the Pentium 4 at 1600 MHz resulted from overclocking a CPU that was labeled at 1500 MHz.
Cache and Memory performance
Theoretically the Pentium 4 features peak transfer rates at 2,98 GByte/s for memory and FSB performance. While even the Pentium III is able to work with two channels of PC-800-RDRAM via the 820 chipset, its FSB at a maximum of 133 MHz limits its performance to a maximum of 0,993 GByte/s (1017 MByte/s).
In practical benchmarking the numbers are much smaller, for even the longest series of burst transfers does not last forever and DRAM of either kind needs its refresh cycles. Even a Pentium III at 1000 MHz with RDRAM is only able to get to 387 MByte/s when writing to memory. In comparsion, even the "slowest" Pentium 4 available at 1,5 GHz scores 737 MByte/s, and when reading from memory it is at 1175 MByte/s. As the following table shows, even an Athlon at 1200 MHz with FSB266 and DDR-SDRAM can not compete it here.
Athlon 1100-200 | Athlon 1200-200 | Athlon 1200-266 | Pentium III 1000 | Pentium III 1000 | Pentium 4 1400 | Pentium 4 1500 | Pentium 4 1600 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pentium 4 has the fastest memory interface of all PC microprocessors. These scores were taken with our benchmark tecMEM for DOS and rechecked with tecMEM32 for Windows2000/NT. | ||||||||
RAM- | PC133 | PC133 | PC266 | PC133 | PC800 | PC800 | PC800 | PC800 |
Move (Mbyte/s) | 222 | 231 | 291 | 199 | 186 | 737 | 741 | 738 |
Read (Mbyte/s) | 336 | 336 | 364 | 213 | 245 | 1175 | 1221 | 1283 |
Write (Mbyte/s) | 345 | 345 | 457 | 465 | 387 | 788 | 767 | 756 |
Aver-age R/W (Mbyte/s) | 341 | 341 | 411 | 339 | 316 | 982 | 994 | 1020 |
Even after a couple of runs the Pentium 4's performance while writing to memory still lowered with raising clockspeeds. The same effect could be noticed with other benchmarking software that measures memory performance. Until now we could not exactly evaluate if this is an incompatibility or a general problem with the Pentium 4. However, the effect is not present for transfers using Load or Move.
Our own benchmarks tecMEM and tecMEM32 are currently under development and not available for the public yet. Please bear with us.
2D-Benchmarks: Windows 98SE
The level of performance with standard applications is still the most important issue for a microprocessor. This does not only include programs such as Microsoft's Word or Excel but also MPEG encoders, 3D- and sound-editing applications. Chip makers simply love computer games because this market always is in need of ever bigger CPU performance. Even the Internet has also been identified as one of the potential drivers for faster CPUs. However, practical experience has shown that neither SSE nor 3DNow! make much of a difference when it comes to surfing the Internet - although in particular Intel would not agree here, as even the architecture of the Pentium 4 was named "NetBurst". We give the scores for SYSmark 98 and the more up to date SYSmark2000.
Apart from a few exceptions, classic 2D applications gain the most from a CPU that performs well with integer instructions. But the number of sound and graphics editing applications that - as for example games do - prefer a fast FPU and MMX, SSE (2) or 3DNow! still is constantly increasing.
2D-Benchmarks: Windows 2000
Corporations prefer Windows NT and its newer version Windows 2000. Taking its high price into consideration by now Pentium 4 better suits for professional use. We therefore ran SYSmark2000 under Windows 2000.
Although the applications in SYSmark2000 are not optimized for the Pentium 4's new SSE2 instruction set, Windows 2000 boots performace slightly for Intels new CPU.
3D-Benchmarks: 3DMark
We evaluate the 3D performance of a microprocessor using 3DMark2000 by MadOnion.com and the older version 3DMark99 Max Pro. The latter is not very well optimized for AMD's 3D instruction set and gives an insight in the efficiency of the 3D instructions itself. Both benchmarks also stress the whole system, including AGP and memory interface.
3D games: Expendable
Expendable is based on Direct3D. It features a complex set of lighting and textures. Especially high resolutions and color depths stress the system here.
Already while launching the program Expendable states that it has been optimized for 3DNow!. This makes the Athlon win here, even at only 1100 MHz it is able to beat a Pentium 4 clocked at 1600 MHz.
3D games: Quake III Arena
The retail version of Quake III Arena with the patch to version 1.17 is based on OpenGL. We run Demo1 at High Quality and Demo2 at the Normal setting. As with actual gaming, sound is turned on.
3D games: Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament, Retail Version with Patch 420 applied, is especially demanding for the CPU and memory subsystem. We use Direct3D for being the most popular interface although the game is not very well optimized for today's graphics boards. Experience has shown that CPU is the most important issue for Unreal Tournament.
We also use the older game "Unreal" with the Option Softrenderer. This makes the game render all the graphics per CPU and also stresses memory transfers. The graphics board is almost irrelevant here.
Software for SSE2
Intel labels SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) one of the major achievements for Pentium 4 while Pentium III features the original version of that 3D instruction set.
In addition to the demo system Intel supplied us with a custom made set of applications for benchmarking. These programs look especially good with Pentium 4 - not surprising at all. AMD was aware of our review but the chip maker was not able to supply one single Athlon for 1200 MHz and FSB 266, although we reviewed this CPU before - but not with these applications.
We still present these scores as we took the numbers for Pentium III systems with SDRAM and RDRAM as well. They therefore give insight in the efficiency of the 3D instruction set and its dependence on the type of memory used.
Application | Athlon 1000 PC133 | Athlon 1100 PC133 | Pentium III 1000 PC133 | Pentium III 1000 PC800 | Pentium 4 1400 PC800 | Pentium 4 1500 PC800 | Pentium 4 1600 PC800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pentium 4 flexes its muscles with apps optimized for SSE2. Pentium III scores show that the advantage ist not solely based on the new bus of the Pentium 4 or the use of RDRAM. All numbers given are the benchmark scores of the particular program. | |||||||
Magnitrax v1.02x | 108 | 119 | 107 | 83 | 127 | 133 | 139 |
NaturallySpeaking Pref 4.0 | 75 | 81 | 106 | 97 | 138 | 143 | 149 |
Windows Media Encoder 7.0 | 97 | 108 | 57 | 95 | 149 | 153 | 161 |
Premiere with Ligos | 30 | 33 | 98 | 93 | 114 | 121 | 130 |
VideoStudio 4.0 | 99 | 106 | 100 | 99 | 126 | 131 | 136 |
eJay MP3 Plus 1.3 | 81 | 85 | 102 | 87 | 120 | 127 | 131 |
Incoming Forces | 51 | 58 | 92 | 84 | 120 | 127 | 133 |
Ligos GoMotion Video Decoder | 83 | 90 | 96 | 83 | 138 | 149 | 158 |
Average | 78,0 | 85,0 | 94,8 | 90,1 | 129,0 | 135,5 | 142,1 |
Conclusion I - Clockspeed rules?
Clockspeed rules - this has been, and still is, Intel's motto. For the future, the Pentium 4 might not always be the fastest CPU but the one running at the highest clockspeed. Its NetBurst architecure is designed for extremely high frequencies and destined to to beat the competition. As soon as there might be a Pentium 4 at 2 GHz next to an Athlon at 1,5 GHz on the shelf, some customers may rather take the system providing him with the higher number. These are marketing tactics, and Intel very successfully relied on them before.
Pentium 4 could also bring back a thing called "P-Rating", that AMD and Cyrix already used for marketing their products. They tried to make clear that a CPU at a lower clockspeed can indeed be as fast as the equivalent Intel CPU running at a higher clockspeed.
According to its latest Roadmap AMD wants to hit 2 GHz only in the second half of 2002. Intel quickly rescheduled the Pentium 4 at 2 GHz for the same timeframe. Sources also give the third quarter of 2001 as the timeframe for a Pentium 4 at 2 GHz. Our test of a Pentium 4 running at 1,6 GHz shows that it gets very close to an Athlon 1200 with DDR memory and even clearly beats it in some benchmarks. Therefore, Intel has no reason to worry: A Pentium 4 at 2 GHz could well beat an Athlon at 1,5 GHz with DDR-SDRAM.
But for the time being, Pentium 4 is a "don't buy" for speedy Allround-PCs. The CPU is too expensive for now and even at its high clockspeed does not offer enough performance for its price.
Conclusion II - Pros may like it
Of course, Intel clearly wins with applications specifically designed for SSE. There may be only a few for now but at least there are some household names among them. The significant performance gains for Adobes Premiere with Ligos MPEG-Encoder or with Uleads Videostudio may make Pentium 4 an option for professionals working with digital video. Time is money for this kind of customers and Pentium 4 here renders faster than the rest of the pack. However, it has also to be noted that usually only small parts of these apps are optimized for a new instruction set.
Still, Pentium 4 gives the impression of only being a "Release 1.0" of the NetBurst architecture. Therefore its situation does not differ much from the fate of the Pentium Pro released five years ago, whose P6 architecture was only suitable for the mass market with a makeover called the Pentium II. For now, Pentium 4 is much like Pentium Pro was in its time: its huge cost of CPU, motherboard and Rambus memory makes it a microprocessor for professionals and those that want to be professionals.
For these customers the lack of multiprocessing capabilities with Pentium 4 is a clear disadvantage. Only a new version of the CPU, currently under development and codenamed "Foster" will be able to play together.
Conclusion III - Die shrink ahead
The majority of PC users can look forward to a project codenamed "Northwood". According to latest Intel documents seen by tecChannel this new version of the Pentium 4 will only surface in the fourth quarter of 2001 at clock speeds beyond 2 GHz. Northwood will be made with Intel's new manufacturing process at 0,13 micron and therefore be cheaper. As Intel confirmed to tecChannel already, even a chipset using PC-133-SDRAM for the Pentium 4 is in the making. This chipset, currently labeled "Brookdale" in the industry, may also feature support for DDR-SDRAM - but not before 2002. In Q3 2001 the first version of Brookdale will bring compatibility with PC-133-SDRAM.
Only systems powered by Northwood and Brookdale will establish Pentium 4 in all segments. And this is where Intel wants to be. As the chip maker stated before its most important launch this year, it wants to sell an equal amount of Pentium III and Pentium 4 CPUs by the end of 2001 already. (mec/nie)
(Translation by Nico Ernst. This story is (c) by IDG Interactive GmbH. All rights reserved.)