The Business Winstone 2001 suite from ZD Labs is an application-based PC benchmark that uses business programs like MS Office 2000, FrontPage 2000, Lotus Notes, and Netscape to test a system's performance. New in the 2001 version are specific tests for file compression, anti-virus scanning and email. This suite of programs are run from a batch script that attempts to accurately emulate a business system load, then supplies a final performance rating.

In our Business Winstone 2001 testing, the Duron 1.1 GHz easily beat the scores of its Duron competition, but more importantly, it surpassed the Athlon 1 GHz under Win 2000. These extremely close benchmark scores can help give us a better idea of where the Duron vs. Athlon comparison really sits, at least in business applications.

Content Creation Winstone 2001 is yet another benchmark from ZD Labs, and one that is very similar to Business Winstone. While the Business Winstone tests business application performance, Content Creation Winstone makes use of more robust multimedia applications such as Adobe Photoshop & Premiere, Macromedia Director & Dreamweaver, and Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge in its suite of applications. These programs are also run somewhat concurrently, such as applications staying active and resident while waiting for another test to finish. This makes Content Creation Winstone 2001 one of the best business and multimedia stress tests available, and is a good indicator of overall system performance.

With the more multi-media oriented Content Creation benchmark, the Duron 1.1 GHz pulls out all the stops and takes the performance lead under both operating systems. Given the closeness of our previous Duron 1 GHz testing, this should not be surprising, but it at least shows where the enhanced features of the Duron 1.1 GHz can give it near-Athlon performance. We should also note that SSE performance is not a major consideration of either of the Winstone tests, thereby negating one of the Duron 1.1 GHz' important features.

BAPCO's SysMark 2001 is truly a behemoth of a system benchmark, and is about as close to a "Crusher" equivalent as we'll find in the business world. SysMark 2001 makes heavy use of business, multimedia and Internet development applications and the benchmark itself is the newest of the bunch. It also nicely separates the Internet and Business Elements into two different scores, along with a displaying an Overall total.

The SysMark 2001 scores are quite surprising, given how well the Duron 1.1 GHz performed in other system benchmarks. Here we see the Athlon well ahead in both the Internet Content Creation section, as well as easily taking the Overall crown. While the Business scores remain close, these results may point to SysMark 2001 being more of the benchmark for the "big boys" and one that makes full use of the Athlon's larger 256K L2 cache.