Performance.

This section could be easy, but since the release of the Pentium 4 back in November, comparing processors has become somewhat more difficult.

As to be expected with the Athlon running at 1.3 and 1.33 Ghz, users can expect impressive performance in all applications with large amounts of power for everyday Windows usage. As with all previous Athlon releases, the new 1.3 and 1.33 Ghz chips are equipped with the best x87 floating point unit currently available and this shows itself to advantage in many gaming applications such as Quake III. The Athlon 1.3/1.33 Ghz currently has the best integer processing power and the best x87 FPU.

Now that the Athlon has reached 1.3/1.33 Ghz, it can now be seen to completely outclass the Intel Pentium III processor which has sat at 1 Ghz for just over a year. With the 1.33 Ghz Athlon costing the same as the 1 Ghz Pentium III, the increased memory bandwidth and superior Floating Point Unit of the Athlon place it clearly as the better value chip for the PC buyer.

Interestingly AMD have seen fit to sell the latest Athlon in both 200 MHz and 266 MHz bus (100 & 133 MHz DDR respectively) versions, offering users choice of boards and chipsets which can be used with the latest Athlon. Of the two chips, the 1.33 Ghz part is the better performer as it can take full advantage of the increased bandwidth offered by the 266 MHz Front Side Bus used by either the VIA KT133A or AMD-760 chipsets. Whilst running the Athlon with chipsets such as the KT133A or AMD-760 doesn’t offer as much memory bandwidth as the Pentium 4, users can take advantage of the fact that the Athlon still uses PC-133 SDRAM (or DDR SDRAM) compared to the hugely expensive Rambus RDRAM of the Pentium 4.

The 266 MHz FSB and SDRAM combination offers users very good performance (even when compared to the colossal bandwidth of the Pentium 4), and is definitely offers the best price/memory bandwidth combination currently available. The Pentium 4 has shown in many benchmarks a speed gain in particularly memory intensive games, which is a product of its “quad-pumped” 400 MHz Front Side Bus.

Comparing the performance of the 1.3/1.33 Ghz Athlon to that of the Pentium 4 is not straightforward. In the current computing environment, the Athlon is the clear winner with its fast integer processing and FPU, but looking forward things get somewhat more difficult. The Pentium 4 has abandoned much of its x87 FPU power in favour of Intel’s newer SSE-2 instructions, and where these are used (currently only SSE-1, but it is compatible) the Pentium 4 shows performance advantages. As the Athlon lacks SSE-2 (and the original SSE-1) in favour of AMD’s own 3dNow! instruction set, future applications may (please note that the emphasis is on the word may) not run as well on the Athlon. This though is by no means certain and the power of the Athlon’s x87 FPU may well be sufficient for some time.

Conclusion.

Overall the 1.3/1.33 Ghz Athlon processor is the fastest x86 CPU currently available in terms of raw performance, despite it being 200 MHz slower than the fastest current Pentium 4 chip. Couple this factor to aggressive pricing from AMD and the new high-end Athlon chips look very good value for money indeed. Convincing performance and good stable chipsets in the form of the KT133A or AMD-760 give the new high-end Athlon a very good platform with which to make full gain of its impressive performance.

In contrast to the Pentium III, the Athlon is now far and away the better option for the PC buyer as it offers performance advantages in all areas.

When comparing the 1.3/1.33 Ghz Athlon to the Pentium 4, it still offers a big advantage in that overall performance in today’s terms is better and that the Athlon is considerably cheaper than its high-end Intel rival. Until the Pentium 4 moves to the 478 pin form factor and adopts SDRAM with the “Brookdale” chipset, we cannot recommend it above the Athlon (even then there will be a number of areas where the Athlon will still be faster). Overall, the Athlon 1.3/1.33 Ghz is the fastest x86 processor currently available, and is priced at sensible levels in comparison to its rivals and thus gets our recommendation.

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