The Business Winstone 2004 suite from ZD Labs is an update to the application-based PC benchmark line we've been using for years. It still makes use of real-world application tests like word processing, spreadsheets, web browsing and formatting, as well as file compression, anti-virus scanning and email. A multi-tasking component has also been added, and the base requirements have been upgraded quite significantly. As usual, this suite of programs is run from a batch script that attempts to accurately emulate a business system load, and then supplies us with a final performance rating.
In terms of Business Winstone 2004 performance, there is not a lot of performance difference between the two Athlon 64 3500+ processors, and even going further down the list, there is no a significant gap between the CPUs. For example, the Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 939 model is right on the tail of the Athlon 64 3400+ 754-pin processor. The Athlon 64 is also at the top of the class in terms of Business Winstone performance, and these are exceptional relative scores, even down to the Athlon 64 3000+.
CINEBENCH 2003 is a system benchmark that uses CINEMA 4D for both CPU and video-based testing. This benchmark processes a large, detailed image file on-screen, times the overall performance, and displays the results. As this is a processor review, we're concentrating on the CPU score, which incidentally, supports both multi-processing and Hyper-Threading.
CINEBENCH 2003 shows how the overall core speed still tends to win out in many CPU benchmarks. The two Athlon 64 3500+ models and the Athlon 64 3400+ used in this article all run at 2.2 GHz, and hit virtually the same score in CINEBENCH 2003 benchmarking. This helps illustrate that although the Socket 939 platform does have a more robust memory architecture, CPU-specific tests tend to follow along with pure clock speed.
TMPGEnc Plus is an extremely popular MPEG encoder, and a program that not only offers real-world MPEG performance results, but includes a host of specialized CPU support options. The program supports virtually all CPU multimedia features such as MMX/MMX-2, SSE/SSE2, 3DNow!, and even Hyper-Threading.
For the following test, we've taken a high-end, 3-minute AVI file, and then encoded it to DVD-quality MPEG-2 using TMPGEnc Plus 2.5. The results are expressed in the form of time elapsed (minutes: seconds) and unlike our other benchmarks, a smaller bar denotes less time taken, and therefore higher performance.
This MPEG-2 encoding test is a bit different than the previous benchmarks, but again the Athlon 64 3500+ 90nm and 130nm processors are virtually equivalent, with a slight edge to the newer model. The gap between the various processors also breaks down fairly even, with the Athlon 64 3400+ sliding right between the Socket 939 Athlon 64 3500+ and Athlon 64 3200+ models.
