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.

With the Pentium 4-2.0 GHz now in the competition, we see the Business Winstone 2001 scores getting a lot closer. The Athlon 1.4 GHz still wins the overall crown, but by a far smaller margin than before. As we'll see in some upcoming benchmarks, we are starting to see the point where the Pentium 4 can start to match the Athlon at basic business applications. While it may sound strange given that the Pentium 4 is running at 2 GHz and the Athlon at 1.4 GHz, the business applications in Business Winstone 2001 really don't make heavy use of SSE/SSE2 instructions or the processor's FPU.

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 we saw with the Business Winstone 2001 scores, the Pentium 4-2.0 GHz comes extremely close to the Athlon 1.4 GHz in Content Creation Winstone 2001. This is a more surprising finish, as we were certain that the multimedia applications would carry the higher speed Pentium 4-2.0 GHz to victory. Then again, none of the Content Creation 2001 reference applications are specifically coded for SSE2.

BAPCO's SysMark 2001 is truly a monster of a system benchmark, and is about as close to a "Crusher" equivalent as we'll find in the business world. As such, it's easy to give a bit more credence to these scores, since SysMark 2001 makes heavy use of multimedia and Internet development applications (many the same as in Content Creation 2001) 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 final tally.

The SysMark 2001 results are a bit different than the Winstone scores, with the Pentium 4-2.0 GHz easily winning in the Internet section, but more surprising, also coming out on top in the Business area. It is difficult to gauge this discrepancy between SysMark 2001 and the Winstone scores, but the former benchmarking tool is a bit newer and also puts the system through some serious stress testing. It's really case of picking your poison, and we feel that these extremely close results throughout the system benchmarking phase suggest a real evening of the bar between Intel and AMD.