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virtual edge
09/08/1999
page 1 of 2
On
August 1999, it seems AMD have finally surpassed Intel in desktop processor performance.
AMD's seventh generation x86 processor, Athlon (the CPU formerly known as K7), is their latest weapon against
the Intel Pentium III processor.
AMD have been very successfully in the sub $1,000 PC market with their
low-end K6-2 processor. But Intel is slowing turning the tide with their
Celeron processor, which gives better performance and value. In order
for AMD to survive, it must take the battle to the desktop and server market,
where Intel have a virtual monopoly.
Before going into the actual benchmarking figures, let's take a quick look
at both processor's main features:
Just
from the features above, the Athlon beats the Pentium III in terms of
system bus speed and the amount of L1 cache. But will that be enough for
the Athlon to outperform the Pentium III in overall system performance?
Let's find out.
Because
the Athlon requires a slot A system board, and the Pentium III uses a slot 1
motherboard, it is necessary to use different motherboard for each processor.
In such a case, we're not strictly comparing AMD processor against Intel processor;
the overall design of the motherboard also comes into play. To minimize
the impact of testing two different motherboards, the components and
drivers will be the same for both systems. Here's a quick rundown on
each system:
* Important note: the Intel 440BX AGPset IDE controller only supports ATA33, while the AMD 75X chipset supports up to ATA66.
Ziff-Davis
Winstone 99 measures overall system performance by running through a series of commonly used business and engineering applications. Higher number means better performance.
Features Athlon Pentium III
System Bus Speed 200MHz 100MHz
L1 Cache 128K 64K
L2 Cache 512K 512K
L2 Cache Speed 1/2 CPU 1/2 CPU
Multimedia 3D Now! SSE
Processor Interface Slot A Slot 1
Components Athlon System Pentium III System
Motherboard MSI 6167 ver. 1 MSI 6116
Chipset AMD 75X Intel 440BX
Memory 128MB PC100 128MB PC100
BIOS Version Award version 1.1B8 - 08/19/1999 Award version 2.2 - 02/25/1999
HDD Quantum Fireball 8.4GB ATA66 Quantum Fireball 8.4GB ATA66 *
Video ATI Rage 128
98SE - version CD6.11
NT - version 4.3.24ATI Rage 128
98SE - version CD6.11
NT - version 4.3.24
Operating Systems Windows 98SE and NT 4.0 Workstation SP5 Windows 98SE and NT 4.0 Workstation SP5
We
see here that the Athlon beats the Pentium III by 0.7 points in Windows NT. But keep in
mind that for the scale of Winstone 99, 1.0 point does represents a significant margin.
For Windows 98SE, the numbers are roughly the same: the Athlon managed to edge out the Pentium III by 1.1 points.