System setup and notes
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz Prescott S478 CPU - 1.4v
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz Prescott S478 CPU - 1.4v
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz Northwood S478 CPU - 1.6v
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz Northwood Extreme Edition S478 CPU - 1.6v
AMD Athlon 64 Model 3400+ Clawhammer S754 CPU - 2.2GHz - 1.5v
AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 Sledgehammer S940 CPU - 2.4GHz. - 1.5v
AMD Athlon XP-M 2500+ Barton S462 CPU - 1.833GHz - 1.45v
Other components
ASUS P4C800-E i875P (Rev 1.15 BIOS)
EPoX 8HDA3+ VIA K8T880 S754 motherboard (02/12/03 BIOS)
EPoX 8RDA3G NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 (12/12/03 BIOS)
ASUS SK8N nForce3 Pro 150 S940 motherboard (Rev 1005 Beta 006)
2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3500C2 memory used for all non-FX boards
2 x 512MB Legacy Electronics DDR400 ECC memory used for FX-53
ATI Radeon 9800XT 256MB (412/730)
IBM 40GB PATA hard drive
Toshiba 8x DVD
Samcheer 420w PSU
Dell P991 19" monitor
Zalman 7000Cu S478 / 754 cooler
Intel reference copper-bottomed heatsink (S478)
Software
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX9.0b
VIA Hyperion 4.51 drivers
Intel 5.02.1002 chipset drivers
ATI CATALYST 4.1 drivers and control panel
Pifast v41 to 10m places
Lame v3.92 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end using U2's Pop album (607MB)
Gordian Knot - XviD encoding test using first vob of Sleepy Hollow. 1433kbit/s bitrate
Kribi Bench 1.19
ScienceMark 2.0
Realstorm Raytracing benchmark 320x180x32
3DMark 2001SE v330
UT2003 Retail (Build 2225)
X2: The Threat - Rolling Demo
Comanche 4 benchmark
Call of Duty HEXUS Custom test
Quake 3 v1.30 HQ
Notes
3 3.4GHz processors from Intel, all different in their respective makeups. We've added in AMD's Athlon 64 FX-53, Athlon 64 Model 3400+, and a slower Athlon XP-M 2500+ Barton for some comparative fun. A change of motherboard for the P4 chips. This time, we've gone with an ASUS P4C800-E Canterwood board and used our usual 2-2-2-6 latencies.
Nothing untoward to report in terms of installation and usage. Just like the 3.2GHz model, the 3.4GHz part returned BIOS temperatures which were 10 - 12c higher than a comparable Northwood's. ASUS' board is infamous for reading a lowish temperature, yet it showed the 3.4GHz model hitting 60c, and that's with moderate BIOS load. The processor, however, showed no signs of clock throttling when benchmarked.
Benchmarks were conducted at 1024x768x32 @ 85Hz unless otherwise stated. They were carried out three times. The lowest and highest results were discarded.
Nomenclature
AMD and Intel currently see processor nomenclature in two different lights. AMD's happy to run with processor model numbers. Intel, on the other hand, is a steadfast user of pure MHz. Intel also knows that a 2.8GHz Celeron does not match the performance of a 2.8GHz Prescott, which may not, in turn, match that of a 2.8GHz Northwood. That's precisely why, when moving on to a Socket T platform, Intel will designate Prescotts by arbitrary numbers and not MHz. For example, a Socket T 3.4GHz Prescott will be called a Model 550. And you thought AMD's naming was complicated.
