CPU Reviews & Articles

SiSoft SANDRA 2002

SiSoft SANDRA is an interesting suite of individual benchmarks and system utilities. The CPU benchmarks are artificial tests that can give a different view of processor and subsystem performance, far away from application-based testing. The benchmarks that truly isolate processor performance are the CPU Arithmetic and CPU Multi-Media tests. Please note that in all CPU testing, there was no change in the default activation of all MMX, SSE and SSE2 enhancements.

The SiSoft SANDRA CPU Arithmetic tests outline the potential performance of the ALU (integer) and FPU (floating-point) portions of the CPU. In the ALU testing, the Athlon XP 2100+ still maintains its lead even against the Pentium 4-2.4 GHz. The FPU scores reverse this trend, as the Pentium 4 is the one enlarging its lead over the Athlon XP. These results continue to astound, since the Pentium 4 has a double-pumped ALU unit (ALU speed doubles per clock) but it is the FPU area where the Pentium 4 takes the lead.

The CPU Multi-Media benchmarks are much the same as the standard CPU tests, except the MMX and SSE/SSE2 portions of the processor are highlighted. The Pentium 4-2.4 GHz extends the lead over the Athlon XP competition in FPU testing, but it's the ALU area where we have the closest race. This has been Athlon XP territory for a long while, but the speedy Pentium 4-2.4 GHz squeezes out a tight win.

The memory bandwidth tests are the most popular portion of the SiSoft SANDRA benchmark suite. The i850/RDRAM platform is the usual winner of this battle, but it is interesting at how competitive the i845D is to the nForce, and when powered by the Pentium 4-2.4 GHz, it actually outpaces the Athlon XP 2100+.

PCMark 2002 Pro

PCMark 2002 Pro is an intriguing system benchmark, as it relates more to basic computer usage. Instead of relying on synthetic scores or actual business applications, it cuts a swath between the two methodologies. PCMark 2002 Pro performs CPU tasks such as image compression, text search and audio conversion, while combining this with a selection of similar benchmarks for memory, hard drive and video components. As we are dealing specifically with processors, the two we will be looking at are the CPU and Memory Scores.

In the CPU tests, the Pentium 4 processors come out ahead of the Athlon XP competition, and you will notice that the PCMark 2002 Pro results correlate very closely to the processor's actual performance rating or clock speed. Once we hit the Memory portion of the benchmark, the results start to really favor the Pentium 4. Naturally, the i850/RDRAM platform is the easy winner, but there is still a large difference between the Intel and AMD DDR systems.

The way PCMark 2002 Pro actually performs the memory tests is different than some other benchmarks (such as SiSoft SANDRA), as it tests the system using a wide array of data sets, and of many different sizes. At the lower-size data levels, both DDR platforms perform closely, but at a few of the tests using very large data sizes, the Pentium 4 has a very noticeable advantage. The only logical assumption is that the 512K of L2 cache found on the Pentium 4 Northwood really helps when moving large pieces of data between the CPU and memory.