Pentium 4 vs Athlon Benchmarks and Price Analysis
There has been some recent discussion here as to whether the Pentium 4 was even an option in terms of a processor upgrade. Some people claim that the Pentium 4 has aweful performance, and generally, some benchmarks tend to show this. With prices as high as they are for the Pentium 4, it may first seem like an uncompelling choice.
This next year, though, the Athlon and Pentium 4 are going to remain the high performance alternatives. Some people are likely to find better value with AMD, and others are looking for better stability with Intel.
Therefore, I wanted to do an alalysis, and a recent issue of PC Magazine has prompted me to want to include some more benchmarks that happen to be newer on the market.
First, the contendors. I will be listing the scores and prices for a 1.0GHz AMD Athlon with 128MB of SDR SDRAM memory and a KT133 chipset. There will also be a 1.2GHz Athlon with the same memory and chipset. Finally, a 1.2GHz Athlon with DDR memory and an AMD 760 based chipset. From Intel, PC Magazine decided to test a 1.0GHz Pentium III Processor with SDR SDRAM and an i815 based chipset, and a 1.5GHz Pentium 4 with RDRAM and the i850 chipset.
First, let's discuss prices. I will be using the fifth from the top price on Pricewatch.com. The KT133 chipset will be the Asus A7V, the memory will be CAS2 PC133. The AMD760 chipset will be the Asus A7M266 and memory will be PC2100 CAS3. The i815 chipset will be the Asus CUSL-C, and the i850 chipset will be the Asus P4T. Scores may be slightly off (PC Magazine doesn't state exact motherboard used, but I expect error to be less than 2%), but pricing was important, so I decided to pick high quality parts.
Athlon 1.0GHz and SDR
Processor - $176
Chipset - $133
Memory - $88
Total - $395
Athlon 1.2GHz and SDR
Processor - $265
Chipset - $133
Memory - $88
Total - $466
Athlon 1.2GHz and DDR
Processor - $265
Chipset - $204
Memory - $178
Total - $647
Pentium III 1.0GHz and SDR
Processor - $327
Chipset - $113
Memory - $88
Total - $528
Pentium 4 1.5GHz and RDRAM
Processor - $855
Chipset - $245
Memory - $162
Total - $1262
Analysis
Obviously, the Pentium 4 is insanely overpriced, and price drops are in order. I would think that unless the price of Pentium 4 + memory + motherboard does not decrease to half, the more compelling solution would be the Athlon with DDR. Giving the benefit of the doubt, though, the Pentium 4 is brand new, and for a long time, the 1GHz Pentium III was almost $1000. However, with compeition as fierce as it is, Intel can use some very serious price drops, or at least a higher performing product.
I would think that if the 1.0GHz system drops to around $450, and the 1.5GHz Pentium 4 system drops to around $650 for processor + motherboard + memory, then that would be a good price to buy. But let's check out the benchmarks.
Business Winstone 2001
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 33.9
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 41.0
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 46.2
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 41.0
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 42.4
Analysis
This benchmark is clearly office based, with applications that the Pentium 4 was not designed to run. However, it is also applications that people use the most. It's a good thing that the Pentium 4 beats the Pentium III, but not beating the DDR Athlon setup puts the Pentium 4 at a severe disadvantage, since the price difference is so huge. At one half the cost, the Athlon performs higher in this test. The Pentium III, though, posts as interesting result, as it ties with the 1.2GHz SDR Athon, even though it is clocked 200MHz slower.
Content Creation Winstone 2001
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 44.2
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 52.6
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 61.3
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 50.8
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 55.6
Analysis
Here Intel has a big problem. The DDR Athlon soundly passes the Pentium 4, and for that matter the Athlon with SDR. Content Creation Winstone is for measuring multitasking performance while running very intensive apps. These are common apps, though, and the Pentium 4 should be doing better for the price. However, the Pentium 4 again beats the Pentium III and the Athlon with SDR, and the 1.0GHz Athlon again wipes the rear. Not bad performance for the cost, though.
3D Winmark 2000
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 178
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 193
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 209
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 162
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 221
Analysis
Here we finally have a justification for the higher priced Pentium 4, though not by much. In 3D apps, the Pentium 4 does get a lead over the Athlon with DDR. 3D Winmark does include some SSE optimizations, which is clearly the reason for the higher score. The interesting thing here is that the Pentium III clearly shows its age, while the Athlon shows its floating point power. It's just not enough to beat the Pentium 4 in what it was designed to do.
3D Winbench 2000 Processor Test
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 2.0
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 2.1
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 2.5
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 1.8
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 2.4
Analysis
We see the same results here as earlier. In 3D the Pentium 4 outdoes the Pentium III by a wide margin (33%), but not enough to beat an Athlon with DDR this time. It's too bad for the Pentium 4, too, because this benchmark uses DirectX 8, which has some SSE instructions enabled (though SSE2 and further optimizations may help things later on).
I-Bench - Loading Web Pages (Total)
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 68 seconds
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 57 seconds
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 54 seconds
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 70 seconds
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 62 seconds
Analysis
Here Intel processors generally lag behind the Athlon. Even the SDR Athlon system outpaces the Pentium 4 by 5 seconds. 5 Seconds may not seem long, but over more complex pages and a long enough time, these differences add up. Plus, for the cost of Intel solutions right now, they aren't much faster. The Internet is what many people use for their computers, so this test should be considered valid.
Quake III
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 151.3
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 167.2
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 183.7
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 156.3
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 218.6
Analysis
Here it comes... obviously a lot of you know already that Quake III favors the Pentium 4, so no surprise here. It is interesting, though, that DDR memory still does not come close to beating the Pentium 4. One thing I want to mention, though, is that Quake III has absolutely no SSE optimizations, and it wasn't built to favor Intel processors. It simply demonstrates that highly graphics intensive 3D apps do better on the Pentium 4. This also shows that clock for clock, the Pentium III is even faster than the Athlon in certain 3D apps.
MP3 Encoding
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 3:44 minutes:seconds
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 3:11 ""
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 3:10 ""
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 4:02 ""
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 2:58 ""
Analysis
Here, you can see that for encoding MP3s, the Pentium 4 has the highest performance. We also see that DDR memory really doesn't help the Athlon to get a much higher score. The Pentium III is really lagging here, but the Pentium 4 shaves more than a minute off of that time. Not bad, but is it worth the cost? Maybe if you are doing a lot of MP3 encoding https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/6.gif.
Photoshop 6 Scores (total time)
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 1:43 minutes:seconds
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 1:31 ""
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 1:24 ""
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 1:27 ""
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 1:06 ""
Analysis
Here, we see that Photoshop must have a fair amount of SSE optmizations. The Intel systems are clearly ahead, and even the Pentium III closely approaches the DDR Athlon. The Pentium 4 is also way ahead of the pack. Clearly, the Pentium 4 was designed for graphics programs and 3D over office applications or Internet web page loading.
SPEC2000 Integer
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 379
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 430
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 461
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 459
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 535
Analysis
What SPEC tends to show as a benchmark is how much optimizations can affect a processor. The SPEC benchmarks are extremely highly optimized, and it clearly shows that the Pentium 4 was designed with optimizations to take fully advantage of the hardware. Intel's Pentium III almost reaches towards the DDR Athlon, and the Pentium 4 takes the gold by a long shot. This makes a shiny future for the Pentium 4, as more future applications are likely to see optimizations.
SPEC2000 Floating Point
Athlon 1.0GHz + SDR - 321
Athlon 1.2GHz + SDR - 349
Athlon 1.2GHz + DDR - 412
Pentium III 1.0GHz - 313
Pentium 4 1.5GHz - 558
Analysis
Here we can see that the Athlon's great floating point engine powers it past the Pentium III. We can also see that DDR has the ability to bring the Athlon great performance. The surprising thing, though, is that the Pentium 4 blows everything out of the water. Clearly, the Pentium 4 needs to be optimized, and the floating point engine is one that can really benefit, even over the Athlon FPU. We'll have to see if other applications can benefit as well as SPEC in the future.
Thanks
Thanks for reading this long post, but I found these scores interesting, and I wanted to share them. This post is quite long, even for me. However, I appreciate any feedback on what your opinions might be for these scores, or if you agree with my analysis. Clearly, the price of the Pentium 4 needs to drop significantly, but we also see that there are many apps that can already take advantage of the Pentium 4, and it is likely to turn into a very compelling solution. Right now, though, in the apps that we use most, the Pentium 4 really needs to be lowered in price before most people should consider it. AMD is being very agressive at this time, and we already know that the income was flat this past quarter due to lowering their average selling prices (ASPs) from $90 to $80. They are out for blood, but the question is whether they can continue to produce better processors.
Again, reply if you have anything to add. https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif
