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In the Forums... |
Posted: April 3rd, 2002 Written by: Tuan Huynh The Test Continued...  Here we finally see the Athlon XP2100+ outperform the Pentium 4 2.4 GHz. The Athlon XP takes a 2% lead over the Pentium 4 most likely due to its superior 3 pipeline FPU. But since 3D Mark 2001SE is a synthetic benchmark and doesn’t represent any game, with the exception of Max Payne, it’s used for nothing more then bragging rights.  For those of you who like showing off on Mad Onion using PC Mark, the Pentium 4 2.4 GHz will be the processor to show off with, as it has a 10% lead over the Athlon XP when it comes to the amount of CPU marks in PC Mark 2002. Conclusion It’s really hard to declare a winner, depending on your standpoint, while the Athlon XP has put up a good fight, from a performance standpoint, the Pentium 4 running at 2.4 GHz is the winner. Intel is finally able to beat out AMD’s flagship processor. With the 2.4 GHz running at a 400 MHz FSB already outperforming the Athlon XP2100+, imagine how much faster the 533 MHz variants would be. Though in exchange for performance, there will be a price premium to pay. The Athlon XP2100+ can already be found on Price watch for $241, while the Pentium 4 isn’t showing up in stores yet, but already carries an approximate price of $650. From a value conscious standpoint, you can’t go wrong with the Athlon XP2100+, it performs very well, but just not as well as the Pentium 4 2.4 GHz. Coupled with a GeForce 3, GeForce 4, or Radeon 8500, you’d have a killer gaming system for the price. From a business standpoint, you’ll most likely just use Office applications thus you’d be better suited off with a Celeron Tualatin or Duron processor with either a SiS740 or VIA KM133A/266. If you’re a web designer or into video editing, you would be very well off with the Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, as it has SSE2 instructions which most of the programs have optimizations for. In the end it’s really hard to make a recommendation on either processor, as they both have their pros and cons. It really comes down to what you will be doing, and how much you want to spend on it. If you have quite a bit of money to spend, you can’t go wrong with the Pentium 4. If you’re working on a low budget, the Athlon XP would be a more viable choice as it costs about a third less. |
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