« Return to: A Fast Bus, but Catch It Later
| SYSTEM | Processor | Memory | Frontside bus (MHz) | PC WorldBench 4 score | Return to Castle Wolfenstein1 | Unreal Tournament1 | TIME (IN SECONDS) REQUIRED TO RUN TEST OF: AutoCAD | TIME (IN SECONDS) REQUIRED TO RUN TEST OF: Music-match 7.1 | TIME (IN SECONDS) REQUIRED TO RUN TEST OF: Premiere 6.0 | TIME (IN SECONDS) REQUIRED TO RUN TEST OF: Photoshop 7.0.1 | TIME (IN SECONDS) REQUIRED TO RUN TEST OF: VideoWave 1.5 (DiVX) |
| Dell Dimension 8300 | 3-GHz Pentium 4 | 1GB DDR400 SDRAM | 800 | 126 | 118 | 219 | 253 | 147 | 247 | 287 | 74 |
| Falcon Northwest Mach V | 3-GHz Pentium 4 | 1GB DDR400 SDRAM | 800 | 127 | 122 | 254 | 256 | 148 | 248 | 284 | 83 |
| Gateway 700XL | 3-GHz Pentium 4 | 1GB DDR400 SDRAM | 800 | 126 | 118 | 238 | 263 | 147 | 227 | 290 | 83 |
| Falcon Northwest Mach V | 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 | 1GB PC1066 RDRAM | 533 | 125 | 115 | 242 | 265 | 145 | 242 | 288 | 82 |
| Average of three systems | 2.17-GHz Athlon XP 3000+ | 1GB DDR SDRAM2 | 333 | 136 | 96 | 226 | 226 | 163 | 210 | 281 | 76 |
| Average of three systems | 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 | 1GB PC1066 RDRAM | 533 | 121 | 117 | 213 | 273 | 144 | 259 | 293 | 76 |
The new chip set impacts demanding games and apps like AutoCAD, but Athlon XP systems maintain a lead on most tests.
1 Frames per second at 1024 by 768 resolution and 32-bit color depth. 2 One system used DDR333, others DDR400.
How We Test: All systems tested with PC WorldBench 4 (see www.pcworld.com/benchmark). One Athlon XP 3000+ PC ran Windows XP Professional; all others, Windows XP Home. All P4 PCs tested with hyperthreading off. In Return to Castle Wolfenstein we measure frame rates at the given resolution generated during a recorded demonstration; Unreal Tournament 2003 measures frame rates at the given resolutions during a flythrough of one game level. In AutoCAD we time AutoDesk Group International's benchmark, AUGI Gauge v15, which runs CAD tests. In the Musicmatch Jukebox 7.1 encoding test, we time the conversion of six WAV files into 160-kbps MP3 files. We resample all six MP3 files to the lower bit rate of 64 kbps as if for use on a portable player. In Adobe Premiere 6.0, we time the preview rendering of two video tracks and one audio track, scrolling through frames and exporting the finished movie to various video formats, then scroll through the output to verify the encoding. In Photoshop 7.0.1, we time the rotation of a JPEG file by set amounts, then save it as a thumbnail and EPS file. We apply various filters, undoing the process between filters. In VideoWave 1.5, we time taking a raw AVI video file, adding standard effects and music, and converting it into a MPEG2 file using the DivX codec. Tests developed and conducted by the PC World Test Center. All rights reserved.
Chart Notes: Higher scores on PC WorldBench 4, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Unreal Tournament are better; in all others, lower is better; best scores in bold.