Intel Pentium 4 Northwood review

De nieuwe Intel chip is officieel op de markt en ontroont de AMD XP processor van zijn leidende positie. Dit dankzij het 0,13 micron procédé en het grotere on-die cache van 512KB. De volgende review van Tom's Hardware toont dit aan. De specificaties van de Northwood chip zijn:

• Available at speeds ranging from 1,4GHz to 2,2GHz.
  
• Based upon Intel’s 0,13 micron manufacturing process
  
• 512KB on chip, Full Speed L2 Cache
  
• Rapid Execution Engine - ALU clocked at 2x frequency of core
  
• 128 bit Floating Point/Multimedia unit
  
• "Hyper Pipelined" Technology for extremely high clock speeds
  
• Featuring the Intel "NetBurst" micro-architecture
  
• Supported by the Intel 850 and i845 chipsets
  
• Fully compatible with existing Intel Architecture-based software
  
• Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
  
• Intel MMX media enhancement technology
  
• Memory cacheability up to 4GB of addressable memory space and system memory scalability up to 64GB of physical memory
  
• Support for uni-processor designs
  
• 1.5V operating voltage range

A comparison of the two top products from AMD and Intel reveals the astonishing: although the processors are as different from one another as apples and oranges, the difference is much less obvious in the benchmark results, when taken from an absolute standpoint.

In any case, one thing is visible: in the majority of performance tests, the new Pentium 4/2200 is ahead. After all, the top AMD processor has to make do with 1666 MHz, while its archenemy steps in with 2200 MHz. A closer look at the comprehensive benchmarks reveals that in Office performance as well as Linux Kernel compiling, the Athlon XP still takes the lead, despite its 32% clock speed disadvantage!

In de verschillende benchmarks ligt de AMD XP processor aan kop, maar meestal is deze positie toch voorbehouden aan de Intel Pentium 4 met Northwood core. Even een overzicht van de benchmarks waarop de twee processors uitblinken:

• Intel Pentium 4 Northwood
  
  • Quake
    
  • 3DMark 2001
    
  • MPEG1 encoding
    
  • Wave file omzetten naar 178Kbps MP3 file
    
  • SiSoft Sandra Memory Bench
    
  • 3D rendering
    
  • Data compressie (WinAce)
  
  
• AMD Athlon XP
  
  • 3DMark 2000
    
  • SiSoft CPU Bench
    
  • SiSoft Multimedia Bench
    
  • Microsoft Office Performance
    
  • Linux Kernel Compiling