Entry No.15t

IT Writers Awards

Darren Yates puts the hottest new computers to the test. The results will surprise you.

The latest new computer systems have been a closely guarded secret but we can now lift the lid and reveal to you the latest technology from AMD and Intel. While we'll go into more detail about the processors themselves in this month's Processor Report, we've thoroughly tested four computer systems based on brand-new technology - Dell's Dimension 8100, Gateway's 1.5GHz Pentium 4, a 1.5GHz reference box straight from Intel and AMD's 1.2GHz Athlon.

We also tested them against our 866MHz Pentium III reference system for good measure for a complete overview of where your computing dollar is headed.

Dell Dimension 8100
Built around a completely new "quick-release" chassis, the Dimension 8100 sports Intel's new 1.5GHz Pentium 4 processor and 128MB of Rambus memory, split into two 64Mb modules with two "spacers" filling the remaining two slots. The main features elsewhere are the new 64Mb nVidia GeForce2 GTS Ultra graphics card, 40Gb UltraATA-100 hard disk drive plus NEC's 12X-speed DV-5700A DVD-ROM drive. There's no FireWire built-in however four USB (universal serial bus) ports take care of your peripheral needs along with one legacy parallel and serial port. Dell supplied the unit with Microsoft's Windows Me operating system, which only sported DirectX 7.1. Intel has stated that to take advantage of the new Pentium 4 architecture, you will need DirectX 7.0b or DirectX 8.

Gateway 1.5GHz Pentium 4
The Gateway version was fairly obviously a pre-production model with no badging other than the Gateway brand. However underneath, it sported the same processor and memory as the Dell unit. It also sported the same NEC 12X-speed DVD-ROM drive. The graphics card was a slightly slower 64MB GeForce2 GTS card instead of the Ultra version in the Dell system.

This Gateway system shared the exact same drive as the AMD 1.2GHz Athlon reference system, namely IBM's 30GB DeskStar DTLA-307030 UltraATA unit. Again, there were no FireWire ports on this unit however the case work sported a decal for it on the front panel next to the two front-firing USB ports. Another two USB ports were located at the rear. The sound card was a Creative Sound Blaster Live Value card - we certainly hope that vendors offer a little more audio grunt with the final release machines.

As with the Dell system, the Gateway machine sported an 850-chipset based board numbered "E210882", although we couldn't get further information on this reference. The system also came with Gateway's VX720 flat-screen 17-inch CRT monitor and Boston Acoustics BA-7500 digital speakers.

Gateway supplied the system with Windows 98SE, sporting DirectX 7 only.

AMD 1.2GHz Athlon
Fresh from the factory, this system not only sported the newly announced 1.2GHz Athlon processor but also the first of AMD's new 760-chipset motherboards. One of the features of the system was the new DDR (double-data rate) memory. Previously, this type of memory had only been seen on high-end 3D graphics cards. AMD supplied the system with 256MB of DDR memory but in order to keep the playing field as level as possible, we removed 128MB of this for testing. Graphics power was provided by the ever-reliable 64MB Asus AGP-V7700 card. It also sported Pioneer's 8X-speed DVD-115 DVD-ROM drive. The motherboard itself was an AMD Corona EVT7 board, although AMD has said that boards will be available through the usual motherboard vendors. This unit included the same hard disk as Gateway's Pentium 4 although with remarkably different results.

Intel 1.5GHz Pentium 4
Just before we went to press, Intel flew in its own 1.5GHz Pentium 4 reference system from its US headquarters. Using what we believe is the final release D850GB motherboard, this unit include 256MB of RDRAM, 64MB nVidia GeForce2 Ultra graphics card plus a 30GB UltraATA-100 hard disk drive. The major difference with this machine was the inclusion of Windows 2000. While that made it difficult in some ways to correlate results, it actually meant that we had three fairly similar systems using each of Microsoft's operating systems.

The benchmarks
The first thing we can confirm from our tests is that the Pentium 4 offers no office application performance gains over the Pentium III. The Business Winstone 99 scores showed both Pentium 4 systems separated by the 866MHz Pentium III result. Intel admits that office application performance was not one of the focuses of the Pentium 4 however it strikes me as very odd that doubling the clock speed has done nothing for system performance on office applications. AMD's 1.2GHz Athlon is more than 13 percent faster on these applications than its nearest Pentium 4 rival. Remarkably, the AMD machine managed to extract significantly more performance from the IBM hard disk drive than the Gateway, nearly 4MB/second faster.

DirectX
While you can read the DirectX debacle elsewhere in this month's PC User, the end result of our game benchmark tests was that the Pentium 4 doesn't appear to be offering the sort of performance gains you'd expect. In fact, as far as Rage's Expendable is concerned, Pentium 4 appears to be an expensive flop. On both Pentium 4 systems, the best frame rate we achieved at 1024 x 768-pixel resolution was a paltry 71 frames per second (fps). We were able to achieve a fractionally higher rate on our 866MHz Pentium III. That suggests that the game's performance is more reliant on the graphics card than the processor itself. That's until you look at the 1.2GHz Athlon. Here, the AMD system rocketed ahead with a 104fps rate - more than 44 percent faster than the Pentium 4. Now while Expendable is only DirectX 6.0 game, Intel told us that existing applications would see the benefit of DirectX 8.0. Needless to say, we can't see it yet.

Quake III Arena
Intel includes Quake III Arena in its own benchmark test regime, however we have to admit that again, we haven't seen the same numbers that Intel talks about. The difference in performance between the AMD and Gateway systems was less than 10 frames - or about seven percent. Compared to our 866MHz reference box, the Dimension 8100 pulled away on this test by 35 percent. Intel's reference box showed a clean pair of heels here turning in an excellent score of 181.4fps, the highest we've seen by any desktop computer. This shows the potential but the erratic nature of the results suggests to me that the Pentium 4 still has performance and/or driver issues. MadOnion.com's 3Dmark2000 benchmark makes its first appearance in PC User and really only did so to try and see if we could pick up any errors causing the Pentium 4 to appear to perform poorly. 3Dmark2000 is another that appears in Intel's confidential benchmarking white paper however the chip giant only uses the processor test, not the 3D graphics tests. While the 3Dmark scores show the gap between the processors is erratic, the processor scores show what I expect is a more accurate picture.

Conclusions
Ideally, we would have preferred to have the processor as the only difference between these systems but with memory architecture, motherboard and socket differences, it just can't be done. Also, we have to add the caveat that these systems on the whole are only pre-production systems with Intel assuring us that DirectX 8.0 would be available on systems when they are released. That said, I'm nowhere near convinced the Pentium 4 is as good as Intel thinks it is. Sure, there are areas where it is ahead but rather than just looking at raw benchmarks, does the overall real-world performance justify up-rooting from one computer and spending $6000 or $7000 on a Pentium 4? Should you forget about Pentium 4 altogether and go with an AMD Athlon? At last report, the 1.5GHz Pentium 4 will sell for $US795 each per thousand to dealers. AMD's 1.2GHz Athlon is selling at time of writing for $US612 in volume. Based on this, I think at least for now, the 1.2GHz Athlon processor is the best all-round performer, despite the 1500MHz Pentium 4's 25 percent clock speed advantage. With vendors scrambling to meet the November 21 launch date, the issues with DirectX plus the fact that Intel has announced a 2000MHz Pentium 4 will be available early in 2001, my recommendation is stay away from Pentium 4 until then. At the very least, wait until the dust settles and we see the final production machines in action. Even so, buy a Pentium 4 now and I think you'll rue your decision in a couple of month's time.

<BOX>Test your own system
We're including 3Dmark2000 on this month's cover CD so you can compare your own system with our test scores. Simply run the installation program, allow it to add an icon to your desktop and run the program. You should select "default benchmark" and then leave the system alone until it finishes the tests. No other applications should be running the background and you'll need at least 20MB of hard disk space.

<ENDS BOX>
<ENDS>

Back to Best Technical 
Top of page

Content Copyright © the author/publisher listed above

Design Copyright © Consensus Pty Ltd

This web-site uses frames, click here for the full picture