Performance

This is what we have all been waiting for, we don't want to dampen your enthusiasm but the Intel Pentium 4 is not renowned for its performance, what is more important at this stage of the Pentium 4's life cycle is a better understanding of the NetBurst micro-architecture, and why Intel has used this as a foundation for the Pentium 4. We have used our traditional benchmarks with the addition of WebMark 2001 for this review only.

Mad Onion 3DMark 2000
3DMark 2000 is one of the best 3D performance diagnostic benchmark currently available. To provide a comprehensive result we ran the test under two resolutions 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 both in 16-bit colour for both Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 98.

Mad Onion 3DMark 2000

The results are somewhat astounding, under the shipped Windows 2000 Professional, (recommended by Intel) in the 1024 x 768 class it achieves a score of 6866 3DMarks which if compared with the same class under Windows 98 which returns a mesmerising 8872 3Dmarks this score is also reflected in the 800 x 600 class returning a score of 7032 3DMarks and 9711 3DMarks respectively. The latter score of 9711 is the quickest we have had in our labs to date. Can this be attributed to the processor? we cannot attribute the difference to the processor, but one we have constantly maintained, that of the weakness in drivers for Windows 2000 support. It is without a shadow of doubt Windows 2000 should be walloping Windows 98 in any benchmark, and this is no exception. We can only sympathise with you if you are a Windows 2000 user. Still have heart read on and see the rest of our benchmarks.

Mad Onion/BAPCo WebMark2001 v 1.0

WebMark2001, co-developed under the strategic alliance formed between BAPCo® and MadOnion.com™, is a new benchmark for professionals evaluating Internet performance from their user's perspective. With the Internet fast becoming the most common use of the home and business PC, a need has arisen for a benchmark that quantifies the performance of the PC on the Internet.

WebMark 2001 v 1.0 - Overall

The tables turn for Windows 2000 as it finally decides to show what it is made off. The combination of Pentium 4 and Windows 2000 really comes through, and the benchmark ran without any hitches. These test are based on evaluating Internet performance from a users perspective and as such, the results are more than reasonable, the salient NetBurst micro-architecture does it trick and performs admirably.

BAPCO - SYSmark 2000

SYSmark 2000 is an application-based benchmark that reflects today's leading edge software applications for Internet Content Creation and Office Productivity.

SYSmark 2000

The results reflects the same as those in WebMark 2001, Windows 2000 returns a credible score. See our section on Inside the NetBurst™ Micro-Architecture, as this discusses Integer and basic office productivity applications as defined by Intel, this will help you grasp the concept of the SYSmark 2000 score and as to why this is critical if you use basic office productivity applications.

ZIFF DAVIS - Content Creation Winstone 2000

Winstone 2000 is similar to SYSmark 2000 and is used by us as a comparison to the SYSmark 2000 benchmarks.

Content Creation Winstone 2000

The Winstone 2000 justifies the score obtained on SYSmark, and if consistency is what you are looking for then you will find it here, both the SYSmark and Winstone 2000 benchmarks concentrate on Integer and basic office productivity applications. The score of 58 is currently the highest we have achieved in our labs under Windows 2000.

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