MadOnion's 3DMark 2001SE is a very popular 3D benchmark tool, and assuming the video card and driver revision is kept absolutely consistent, then it can be a good system/CPU test as well. 3DMark 2001SE also fills the dual role of doing some idea as to which processor may be the best fit for upcoming DirectX 8.X games. Benchmark testing was performed at the default setting of 1024x768, 32-bit color/textures, and Pure Hardware T&L support.
3DMark 2001SE starts off our 3D game section of our benchmarks, and shows the benefits of the three-tiered Intel attack of dual-DDR400, an 800 MHz FSB and high-end CPU speed. The Pentium 4-3.2 GHz seems equally at home with either the i875P or i865PE, and while the higher-end Intel platform does take the crown, the i865PE slides nicely into second place. The Athlon XP 3200+ falls even further down the line, and Intel has definitely created a nice buffer with their new 3.2 GHz processor.
The 3DMark 2003 benchmark has seen its fair share of controversy, but as long as the mainstream gaming community is using it, we'll present comparison scores. It does offer a view at potential DirectX 9 gaming performance, as well as offering a specific CPU Test that was lacking in the 2001SE version. This benchmark was performed at the standard 1024x768 resolution, using the default range of tests.
The overall 3DMark 2003 overall scores are bunched quite close together, owing to the fact that this particular benchmark is quite video card-limited. The overall rankings stay pretty consistent with the 3DMark 2001 SE results, and once again, the Pentium 4-3.2 GHz is occupying the top two positions.
The CPU section of 3DMark 2003 is one of the better processor benchmarks, as it takes into consideration not only pure GHz power, but also incorporates a bit of system and memory performance as well. Here we see the Pentium 4-3.2 GHz/i875P system taking first place, followed by the Pentium 4-3.2 GHz/i865PE. Once again AMD drops a few notches, and Intel puts even more distance between itself, and the Athlon XP 3200+.
Quake 3: Arena is our primary gaming benchmark here at SE and its design really shows off some of the advantages of the Pentium 4 and Athlon XP. Quake 3 is both floating-point intensive and has support for SIMD optimizations (MMX, 3DNow! and SSE), making it a great fit for processor testing. It also happens to be an extremely popular game and Quake 3 performance is often used as the barometer for many CPU and 3D video card purchases.
Quake 3 testing is performed using High Quality detail and a 1024x768 resolution, using release 1.30, along with the standard "demo Four".
Quake 3 shows a bit of a different story, and looks to regard memory performance as a key element. The Pentium 4-3.2 GHz/i875P naturally hit the highest framerate, but the i865PE is thrust into third spot behind the i875P/Pentium 4-3.0C combo. The same thing happens down the line, and at least on the Quake 3 side of things, the i875P's superior memory performance gives it an advantage when compared to the i865PE.
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