Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz: Does the prophecy hold true?

Overall & Constant Computing Performance

The overall performance crown goes to the Pentium 4 because of its success in the Internet Content Creation tests.  The Athlon 1.33GHz is close behind the Pentium 4 1.5GHz.

Although we’ve just been impressed by SYSMark 2001, CSA Research’s Benchmark Studio has been a recent favorite of ours.  The type of performance Benchmark Studio tests is more of what a demanding IT user expects from his/her system in what CSA Research likes to call, a “Constant Computing” scenario. 

This isn’t the type of home user scenario that some are used to; this is a significantly loaded system that, in this case, features 13 concurrent stressor applications running at once.  The concurrent applications range from streaming video to accessing databases and exchange servers.

As you can see here, the performance isn’t directly related to high bandwidth, rather a combination of bandwidth and latency but extremely taxing nevertheless.  The Pentium III is just barely able to make its way, while the Pentium 4 and Athlon 1.33GHz both duke it out for the top spot.