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| Pentium4 2.4 GHz Another Turning Point | |
| (Review by MS, April 8, 2002) |
Aside from the typical Windows-based applications, there are a few others that solely rely on raw computing power and efficient execution of instructions. One example is DistributedNet RC5 in which the PII used to set a performance milestone over any other CPU at the time (Alphas excluded). Playing devil's advocate here, we can claim that a single Apple G4 1GHz processor delivers 3 times the performance of a 2.8GHz P4. At 20 Mkeys/s, the dual G4 is pretty much without any competition. Once again, the P4 does not look too good, not even compared to the PII. Consider this a curiosity, though but keep in mind that there are are applications that rely on heavy computing performance like what is done in RC5, reason enough to include this benchmark. Like it or disregard it according to your own preference.
Distributed Net RC5
RC5 is not exactly a household application but it is still quite interesting to look at some of the numbers and how the different CPUs stack up against each other. Since we have the numbers, we have also included two sets of data from the MacIntosh Apple G4 12 GHz (single CPU and SMP) which are plain and simply awesome.
Performance in MKeys/sec, higher is better. It's been known for a while that the P4 does not perform well in RC5 and put into perspective against the Apple G4 .... very interesting, to say the least.
Conclusion
It is 146 mm2 large, it is fast, it is running pretty cool and it has potential for future upgrades. Deep pipelines and relatively low IPC (instructions per clock cycle) performance are becoming somewhat negligible factors in view of the raw power of the P4 at 2.4GHz or when overclocked to some 2.8 GHz. The raw power is simply overwhelming.
This raw power still has its price and the current US$ 640 for the 2.4GHz version are not to be underestimated as factors that can influence the buyer's decision. The main thing is really that the Northwood has transformed from the ugly duckling it used to be, a.k.a. Willamette to a serious CPU that can stand up as fierce competition to the current generation of AMD CPU.
Current generation in this case includes the Throroughbred family which does not bring in any architectural changes or improvements over the Palomino, however, throws in a substantial die shrink which will greatly improve the number of die from each wafer or, from a different perspective, will lower the production costs.
The P4, on the other hand, stands at the new cross roads from a 100 MHz to a 133 MHz FSB. Just looking back at the performance boost AMD got out of the same FSB switch, we can expect pretty awesome performance improvements out of the yet next speed grade to come out of the P4 camp. On the other hand, the performance of the P4 is not universally great, RC5 was a rather overdrawn example but there are other applications like Caligari TrueSpace RayTracing where the P4 does not get its foot on the ground against the AMD competition.
So, once again, it'll come down to the actual user preference which platform will be chosen but the latest P4 has enough horsepower to qualify as a very fast CPU.
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