Intel's Pentium 4 2.4GHz: Taking the Lead

3D Gaming Performance

To measure 3D gaming performance we've chosen the Unreal Performance Test 2002 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. For information on the Unreal Performance Test 2002 you can read about it here and here.

Next-Generation 3D Gaming Performance Unreal Performance Test 2002 - 1024 x 768 x 32

Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.0A GHz AMD Athlon XP 1600+ (1.40GHz) AMD Athlon 1.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.6GHz 92.1 91.1 89.8 87.4 86.0 82.7 81.8 79.5 75.9 70.9 65.4 | 0 | 18 | 37 | 55 | 74 | 92 | 111

How will the 2.4GHz Pentium 4 run the next-generation of first person shooter titles? Fairly well. The 2.4GHz Pentium 4 takes the top of the UPT2002 performance chart and gives the Athlon XP 2100+ some good competition.

This is actually a very important chart to pay attention to as it illustrates the scaling of these three CPU cores under what will definitely be a game engine used in many popular games on the horizon. Games that are already in development include Unreal Tournament 2003.

3D Gaming Performance Return to Castle Wolfenstein - 1024 x 768 - High Quality

Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.0A GHz AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz AMD Athlon XP 1600+ (1.40GHz) Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz AMD Athlon 1.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.6GHz 177.4 166.3 163.3 160.1 156.6 152.6 148.4 144.4 138.6 137.7 127.6 | 0 | 35 | 71 | 106 | 142 | 177 | 213

At 2.4GHz, the Pentium 4 is able to extend a 8.6% lead over the Athlon XP 2100+. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is an important benchmark to look at since the Quake III Engine it is based on is used in a number of other games including the recently released Jedi Knight 2.

Just as we mentioned last time, the performance curves have just intersected and we expect to see very competitive gaming performance from both higher clocked Northwood CPUs and the upcoming Thoroughbred based Athlon XP processors.