Desktop CPU Comparison - September 99

Windows NT

As the benchmarking scene shifts to Windows NT, the benchmarking methodology changes slightly to include some of the more high-end professional applications such as those included in the High-End Winstone 99 test suite, as well as the standard 3D Studio MAX R2.5 benchmark.  The inclusion of dual processor support under the latest Quake 3 test also allows for an interesting comparison among processors operating in single and dual processor mode, which is our next topic of discussion before getting to the benchmarks.

The benchmarks are represented both in a graph format and followed by a data table containing all scores in their entirety.  The processors that correspond to the bars in the graphs are as follows (from left to right):

AMD K6-2 300, AMD K6-2 333, AMD K6-2 350, AMD K6-2 400, AMD K6-2 450, AMD K6-2 475, AMD K6-III 450, Intel Celeron 333, Intel Celeron 366, Intel Celeron 400, Intel Celeron 433, Intel Celeron 466, Intel Celeron 500, Intel P2-300, Intel P2-333, Intel P2-350, Intel P2-400, Intel P3-450, Intel P3-500, Intel P3-550, Intel P3-600, AMD Athlon 600, and AMD Athlon 650.

Dual Processors & the Celeron

The situation under Windows NT is a tad different in that NT allows for multi-processor operation, and with more and more high-end desktops moving towards the dual processor trend your purchasing decision becomes twice as hard.  Do you buy a single Pentium III 450 or two Pentium II 333s at the same price?  Unfortunately there is no good benchmark for how everyone will use their dual processor systems, some use them for 3D rendering, others use them as servers and attempting to predict all possible uses would take much longer and require a much greater scope than this comparison is providing.  There are some basic points that you can keep in mind when deciding for or against going with a dual processor desktop system:

First of all, you must be using a SMP capable Operating System, such as Windows NT, OS/2 Warp 4, or Linux/Unix.   Windows 95, 98, and 98SE are not SMP capable, meaning they will not take advantage of multi-processor systems so if you don't meet that basic requirement then the decision is simple.

Secondly, although both Intel and AMD CPUs (at least those featured in this article) support operation in dual processor mode, currently only the Intel processors have motherboard/chipset support for it.   This may change when if first multiprocessor capable Athlon chipsets hit the market next year, however until then, K6-2 and K6-III users are out of luck as they won't be able to run in configurations with more than one CPU any time soon. 

The next point deals with the big question, do you really need the power of dual processors?  And we're going to use the help of a few benchmarks to give us some sort of direction as to whether or not you'll answer that question with a yes.  In both the SYSmark 98 and Winstone 99 test suites, the improvement two identical processors offered over one single processor averaged around 5% with the maximum being a 10% improvement.  Keep in mind that these applications were not multithreaded and therefore they weren't specifically designed to take advantage of more than one CPU.  In these applications you'll notice a performance increase of 5 - 10% and very rarely will you see anything greater than that.

The fourth, and sometimes most critical selling point of multi-processor systems is the performance benefit you'll get when you happen to be running more than one application at a time, aka multitasking.   If you are a heavy multitasker (and we're not talking about how many open browser windows you have, but actually running two CPU intensive programs at once i.e. compiling a program while rendering a scene in 3DSMAX) then you may want to consider exploring the dual processor route. 

The fifth, and final consideration you must make is the bottom line, price.  The cost of adding another processor onto your system isn't a cheap move, especially if you're looking at one of the newer processors (i.e. Pentium III 600), not to mention the added costs of buying a reliable dual processor motherboard (a good one will run you at least $300 with on-board SCSI).   Some have turned to the recent release of the ABIT BP6 as a cheap alternative to having to shell out big bucks for a high-end dual processor system.  For those of you that aren't familiar with the BP6, it is the first dual Socket-370 motherboard to hit the market and allows you to run two Celerons in SMP mode.  While dual Celerons are faster than running a single one, they are not as fast as two equivalently clocked Pentium II/IIIs in all applications.