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AMD Keeps Its Value Crown

New Athlon XP 3200+ gets a faster 400-MHz bus and is still a good deal.

Laurianne McLaughlin

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How We Test

We tested all PCs with Windows XP Professional operating system unless otherwise noted. All systems were tested with PC WorldBench 4, PC World's application-based benchmark. We tested all P4 PCs with hyperthreading turned off.

In the Return to Castle Wolfenstein test, we measure the frame rates at the given resolution generated during a recorded demonstration; Unreal Tournament 2002 measures the frame rates at the given resolutions generated during a flythrough of one level of the game.

In the AutoCAD test, we time AutoDesk Group International's benchmark, AUGI Gauge v15, which runs CAD tests.

In the Photoshop 7.0.1 test, we time the rotation of a JPEG file by set amounts, and save it as a thumbnail and EPS file. We also apply a wide variety of filters, undoing the process between filters.

In the VideoWave 1.5 test, we time the process of taking a raw AVI video file, adding standard effects and music, and then converting it into a MPEG2 file using the DivX codec.

In the Musicmatch Jukebox 7.1 encoding test, we time the conversion of six .wav files into 160-kbps .mp3 files. We further resample all six MP3 files to the lower bit rate of 64 kbps to simulate preparation for use on a portable player.

Tests developed and conducted by the PC World Test Center. All rights reserved.

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