The benchmark analysis brings us back to the familiar "core speed vs. IPC" comparison once again. The Pentium 4-1.7 GHz is certainly wowing buyers with its extremely high clock speed, and making the current AMD 1.33 GHz offerings look meager by comparison. Even the release of the Athlon 1.4 GHz will do little to solve this marketing riddle.

In benchmark testing, however, we see that the Pentium 4's design does not offer the same IPC (instructions per cycle) level as the AMD Athlon. The Athlon simply does more with less, and provides greater-than Pentium 4-1.7 GHz performance, even at 1.33 GHz. In order to keep up in the performance race, Intel has been forced to jack the Pentium 4's clock rate to incredible levels. Then again, the Athlon's core does not allow the same level of core speed increases as the Pentium 4, so we're left at a bit of a crossroads.

For today's applications, there is no doubt that the Athlon 1.4 GHz is the fastest PC processor on the market and that its DDR architecture provides more than enough bandwidth for the current and future applications. The Pentium 4 does hold a potential advantage with SSE2 applications and RDRAM memory, but applications that require these technologies are well over the horizon. In terms of SSE instructions, AMD has been a bit slower than Intel in adopting these technologies, but seems to match the software industry quite closely. For example, the upcoming Athlon Palomino will be SSE-compatible and will negate many of the Pentium 4's SSE application advantages at a time when specialized programs may start appearing in greater numbers.

What the future holds is an open question, as is where the upcoming 0.13 micron Pentium 4 will fit into the performance mix. As Pentium 4 clock speeds increase to 2.0 GHz and beyond, will this be enough for Intel to finally shed the low-IPC monkey and take back the performance crown? We also have the 0.13 micron Athlon Palomino coming around the bend, sporting higher clock speeds, SSE support and a few physical core enhancements. If the present CPU landscape looks like a pitched battle, then you haven't seen anything yet!

The current overclocking range for the Athlon seems to be somewhere between 1.4 and 1.6 GHz, with the latter being a relatively rare occurrence and only with some of the newer cores. In testing using both clock and core speed increases, our review Athlon 1.4 GHz was certainly not an overclocking star, though it did yield some very positive results.

The first step was to increase the clock multiplier while maintaining the 133 MHz FSB. This yielded an easy overclock to 1.46 GHz (11x133) and total stability without needing to resort to higher core voltages. We did notice the CPU heat levels starting to move upwards by a few degrees. Moving to 1.53 GHz (11.5x133) was a bit more difficult and required a core voltage of 1.825V to regain stability within Windows and once again the core heat started rising slightly.

The final step was attempting the immaculate overclock to a full 1.6 GHz (12x133). Unfortunately, although the system did boot easily, stability was not high and Windows crashed more often than Robert Downey Jr. Increasing the core voltage to 1.85V+ didn't help and overall heat levels were not any higher than with the previous overclocks. Attempts at FSB manipulation yielded similar results and the 1.53-1.55 GHz level was about the highest stable overclock attainable with this particular CPU and core.

Note: As with all overclocking, you pay your money and you take your chances, and the above overclocking results should not be taken as indicative of any other CPU that the one reviewed and tested herein.