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 GHz continued it mastery over the other Duron processors, but fell to the power of the Athlon 1 GHz. Given that Business Winstone isn't exactly a multi-media laden benchmark suite, the lead the Duron 1 GHz exhibited over the overclock Duron at 1 GHz was quite surprising.

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.

As with the Business Winstone tests, the Duron 1 GHz once again demonstrated that it is noticeably faster than older Duron models, though perhaps still not quite in the Athlon class. 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 GHz' main weapons.

Quake 3: Arena is our favorite gaming benchmark here at SE and its design can illustrate performance aspects of both CPUs and 3D video cards. This makes it a very flexible benchmark, and useful for a myriad of performance uses. Quake 3 is both floating-point intensive and has support for SIMD optimizations (MMX, 3DNow! and SSE), making it a great test for the enhanced Duron 1 GHz. In Quake 3 testing, the Duron 1 GHz was identified as supporting the game's Pentium III optimizations, while the other Duron and Athlon processors were not.

Quake 3 testing under both Windows 98SE and 2000 are included, with different scales of benchmarking using Normal (16-bit), High Quality and MAX graphic settings. Normal is the basic Quake 3 option (set at 16-bit color/textures), High Quality is at Default settings, and MAX uses the standard High Quality setting and increases the detail levels a bit. Both Normal and High Quality benchmarking are quite good for pure CPU comparisons, but at the MAX level, the video card can often be the limiting factor.

One of the main issues many have with Quake 3 testing is with the SSE enhancements. Since Intel processors naturally score higher, it can be assumed that SSE plays some sort of role in the performance advantage. Now that AMD finally has a SSE-compatible CPU, let's see if it really makes that big of a difference.

As we can see from the Quake 3 benchmark results, the enhancements of the Duron's Morgan core do make a noticeable difference in Quake 3 performance, at least when put up against previous Duron processors. Alas, the Duron 1 GHz once again proves it is not quite in Athlon territory yet, falling behind at all three detail levels. Comparing the Morgan core to the Spitfire at 1 GHz, we see a 10 fps difference in Quake 3 Normal and High Quality testing under Win 98SE. This is not small potatoes, and we can hardly wait to see how the upcoming Athlon Palomino fares against the Pentium 4.