AMD's Athlon XP 2000+ vs Intel's 0.13-micron Northwood

CAD Performance AutoCAD 2002 - C2001 3D Gouraud Index AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz (Northwood) AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (1.60GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2AGHz (Northwood) Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.9GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz 15.74 15.49 15.35 15.12 14.67 14.42 13.97 13.35 12.78 12.18 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 13 | 16 | 19

The XP 2000+ and the Pentium 4 2.2GHz offer relatively similar performance, as do the rest of the XP line. The additional cache doesn't seem to increase performance all that much in this test indicating that the Gouraud shading tests are clearly graphics card limited for the most part (which makes sense).

CAD Performance AutoCAD 2002 - C2001 Non-graphic Index AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (1.60GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz (Northwood) AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2AGHz (Northwood) Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.9GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz 61.62 59.32 57.2 55.24 55.18 50.76 48.8 46.72 44.43 42.49 | 0 | 12 | 25 | 37 | 49 | 62 | 74

The non-graphic index should tell the most about CPU performance influences on AutoCAD 2002 performance and from these scores alone you can see why the Athlon XP does very well in this benchmark. The additional cache helps the Northwood a bit (approximately 4%) but the x87 FPU optimized code of AutoCAD 2002 runs much better on the Athlon XP than on the Pentium 4. This is one area where Intel needs to spend more time gaining acceptance of their SSE2 instructions in order to make the Pentium 4 a bit more competitive.

CAD Performance AutoCAD 2002 - C2001 2D Graphics Index AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (1.60GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz (Northwood) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2AGHz (Northwood) Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.9GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz 64.3 64.18 62.13 61.7 60.58 58.24 54.16 51.95 50.38 48.34 | 0 | 13 | 26 | 39 | 51 | 64 | 77

Concluding the AutoCAD 2002 tests is the 2D graphics index which shows a 7% increase in performance for the Northwood core as well as a very competitive 2.2GHz part.