SiSoft Sandra Professional is a suite of benchmarks and diagnostic tools that cover most aspects of system performance and troubleshooting. The three tests we are concentrating on are the CPU, CPU Multi-Media, and Memory benchmarks, all of which isolate certain areas or features of the CPU and sub-system. For reference, the ALU portion relates to Integer performance, while the FPU isolates the Floating-Point Unit of the processor. The CPU Multi-Media test will be most interesting, since it allows us to test both SSE and 3DNow! capabilities of the Duron 1.1 GHz to see how each matches up.

In the SiSoft CPU ALU and FPU benchmarks, both show the Duron 1.1 GHz well in the lead, with an especially large differential in the FPU section. This test isolates the CPU portion of the system and results likely point to benefits of using the improved Duron core and its Data Prefetch feature.

Moving onto the CPU Multi-Media Benchmark testing, you will notice that we provide two individual scores for the Duron 1 and 1.1 GHz, one of each for the SSE and 3DNow! instruction sets. While the previous Duron 1 GHz scores were quite close to the Athlon 1 GHz, the Duron 1.1 GHz now surpasses it in every test. Notes of interest include the difference between Win 98SE and Win 2000 performance using SSE and 3DNow!. Performance using SSE instructions definitely favor Win 2000, while Win 98SE tended to post higher scores when 3DNow! was utilized. These tests may also point to Win 2000 may be a better environment for the enhanced Duron 1.1 GHz than Win 98SE.

The final SiSoft Sandra benchmark we will check out is the Memory Test. This is a popular benchmark because it outlines potential memory bandwidth as a function of the CPU, motherboard chipset, and memory. In the ALU portion, the Duron 1.1 GHz goes out to a huge lead over both the Duron and Athlon competition, while maintaining a slightly lower differential in FPU testing. There is no question that this is the enhanced Data Prefetch feature at work, predicting data requirements and speeding up memory processing. This is one of the key ingredients to the new processor core, and these SiSoft memory tests help show off its advantages quite well.