WAV crunchin', KribiBench, Raytracing
Pure clock speed, however, is beneficial to pure computational tasks. Encoding to MP3, for example. That kind of activity takes away the benefit of a CPU that's streamlined for use in tasks that require super-fast memory access.
Given a roughly equal speed to the Barton XP3200+, also running at 2.2GHz, the Model 3400's benchmark result is as expected. The streaming nature of MP3 encoding doesn't tie in with the Athlon 64 3400's obvious strengths. Just a smidge over 3 minutes to crunch 607MB WAV files 192kb/s MP3 (Constant Bit Rate) format.
KribiBench absolutely loves the Pentium 4's tight SSE2 implementation. KribiBench is a pure software renderer that can handle an amazing amount of polygons to deliver stunning 3D imagery. The Athlon 64 CPUs' results are lower than expected. Our only viable explanation is that something may be amiss in the latest 4.51 Hyperion drivers. As always with benchmarks, some will undoubtedly run better on one CPU than on another. We've commented on the fact that one could draw up a suite that would heavily favour the Pentium 4, and vice versa.
Here's the reverse situation. Realstorm Raytracing benchmark loves the new, improved Athlon CPU. Time for a cliche now - horses for courses. That's the way with the two main rivals. Both will show you their CPUs in impressive light. It's up to the informed reader to make sense of the benchmark jungle and decide what's best for them.
