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Intel hits new speed heights today, shipping a Pentium 4 that runs at 1.7 GHz, but despite the increase the chip is still locked in a tight battle with Advanced Micro Devices' premier CPU, the 1.33-GHz Athlon.

The newest P4 beats the Athlon in a few test areas, notably video encoding. But on most counts the nominally slower Athlon wins out, proving again that lower processor-speed ratings don't necessarily add up to lower performance. Moreover, top-line P4 systems remain more expensive than comparable Athlon and PIII PCs.

A pair of 1.7-GHz P4 systems shipping this week provided an opportunity for evaluations by the PC World Test Center: a Hewlett-Packard Vectra VL800MT with 256MB of RDRAM and Windows 2000 (sans monitor) and Gateway's gamer-friendly Performance 1700, tested with 128MB of RDRAM and Windows Millennium Edition. The HP is targeted at business users and is expected to retail at $3999 without a monitor. The Gateway is priced at $2699 and includes a 19-inch monitor.

Test Results

Gateway's Performance 1700 PC squeaked past comparable Athlon PCs with a PC WorldBench 2000 score of 170. That's four points better than the score posted by an HP Pavilion 7875 with a 1.3-GHz Athlon and 128MB of DDR memory, and two points above the average score of five 1.2-GHz Athlon PCs--an imperceptible difference on most applications. However, the Performance 1700's score beats the average of four 1.5-GHz P4 PCs by 8 percent, a boost you're likely to notice.

On two music-encoding tests, the Athlon-based HP 7875 and the P4-based Gateway performed evenly. As in previous testing, the Athlon PC excelled at the floating-point-intensive AutoCAD test, while the P4 system outperformed in video encoding. Both ran Windows Me.

On Windows 2000 systems, the relative performance was much the same, except on PC WorldBench 2000. A 1.33-GHz Athlon-based Micro Express MicroFlex 1333A PC with 256MB of DDR memory earned a score of 231, while the HP Vectra came in at 209--a noticeable difference of over 10 percent.

Systems Available Now

HP maintains the business focus of its Vectra line, bundling its TopTools desktop management program with its P4 model and providing a stable system image. The Vectra we tested comes with a crisp 18-inch LCD monitor; though lovely, it adds $2349 to the already-steep $3999 price of the PC alone (a 19-inch CRT monitor costs $449). You also get a 12X DVD-ROM drive, NVidia GeForce2 GTS graphics with 32MB of SGRAM, a 40GB hard disk, and a 10/100 ethernet card.

Gateway's gaming system skips the management features but offers better components for its lower price of $2699 with monitor. You get NVidia GeForce2 Ultra graphics with 64MB of DDR SDRAM, a 75GB hard disk, a 12X DVD-ROM drive, a 12X/8X/32X CD-RW drive, a 56-kbps modem, a 10/100 ethernet card, a TV and radio tuner card, S-Video ports, USB and IEEE 1394 ports, and Boston Acoustic speakers.

Either P4-based system costs more than most comparable Athlon-based PCs. For example, the MicroFlex 1333A includes a 40GB hard disk, the GeForce2 Ultra card, and a very basic 15-inch LCD, and it sells for $1799. The Pavilion 7875 costs $1898 with a 17-inch monitor, an 80GB hard disk, and a GeForce2 GTX card. Each unit has a modem, ethernet, and both DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives.

Bottom line: If you do a lot of video editing or encoding, consider a P4 system. For other tasks, steer toward a PC with an Athlon or a PIII.

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