Intel's Pentium 4 2.80GHz - Moving to the Head of the Class

3D Rendering Performance - 3ds max 5

When the Athlon was first released 3 years ago, 3D Studio MAX was a strongpoint of its performance. The Athlon's raw FPU performance was right up 3dsmax's ally and thus it put Intel's competing solutions (at the time, the Pentium III) to shame. Things have changed a bit, the latest version of 3ds max (R5) does have some Pentium 4 optimizations that keep things quite competitive between the Athlon XP and the Pentium 4.

For our 3ds max 5 benchmarks we chose two benchmark scenes that ship with the product - SinglePipe2.max and Underwater_Environment_Finished.max

3D Rendering Performance - 3ds max 5 SinglePipe2.max - Render Time in Seconds (lower is better) Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.60GHz (400MHz) AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.50GHz (400MHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (2.00GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.4BGHz Intel Pentium 4 2.40GHz (400MHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.20GHz (400MHz) AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.80GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.0AGHz (400MHz) AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (1.60GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47GHz) 214 225 230 231 239 241 246 250 250 265 272 274 283 295 298 307 320 335 | 0 | 67 | 134 | 201 | 268 | 335 | 402

 

3D Rendering Performance - 3ds max 5 Underwater_Environment_Finished.max - Render Time in Seconds (lower is better) Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (2.00GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.60GHz (400MHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.50GHz (400MHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.4BGHz AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.80GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (1.60GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.40GHz (400MHz) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.20GHz (400MHz) AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.0AGHz (400MHz) 310 310 326 329 334 344 349 362 365 379 383 393 409 417 426 456 467 499 | 0 | 100 | 200 | 299 | 399 | 499 | 599

When the Pentium 4 specific optimizations are able to come into play, AMD's 2600+ can offer similar performance to its namesake; in situations where those specific optimizations aren't present however, the 2600+ can offer equal performance to the 2.80GHz newcomer.

3D Rendering Performance - Maya 4.0.1 Rendertest.ma - Render Time in Seconds (lower is better) AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (2.00GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.80GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.60GHz (400MHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.50GHz (400MHz) AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (1.60GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.4BGHz Intel Pentium 4 2.40GHz (400MHz) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.20GHz (400MHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.0AGHz (400MHz) 75 79 83 85 86 88 89 91 91 93 93 94 97 97 99 100 104 113 | 0 | 23 | 45 | 68 | 90 | 113 | 136

The Athlon XP has always had a strong showing under Maya and the trend continues here, even the lightening fast Pentium 4 2.80 falls behind.