Test Environment:

It's now time to get into the details and start looking at benchmarks! Both processors will be tested on PC2400 DDR based systems for the best possible "apples-to-apples" comparison. As such, the P4 will be slightly handicapped as we all know it performs its' absolute best with the i850 chipset and RDRAM. However, RDRAM is not exactly popular with consumers, and so DDRAM is quickly gaining market supremacy. Conversely, we will not be testing the XP200+ against a SDRAM based P4 system because that really wouldn't be much of comparison would it?

Processor	Core	General Specs
		AMD Athlon XP 2000+ Running at 1.67GHz with 37.5 million transistors, the XP has a 128mm square core based on the 0.18 micron process from AMD's Fab 30 in Dresden Germany. The XP 2000+ uses 128KB L1 and 256KB L2 Cache. The chip requires 1.75V to operate and produces upto 70W of thermal power (it typically sits at 62.5W) which is a substantial amount of heat. Max Icc processor current draw is 40A, and typically 35.7A, underlining the need for a good high wattage power supply. Unit Retail Cost is approx.: $540 CDN
		Intel Pentium4 2.0GHz Running at 2.0GHz, the P4 has a 217mm square core based on the 0.18 micron process from the Costa Rica Fab. The P4 2GHz uses 8KB L1 cache, 256KB L2 Advanced Transfer cache, a 128-Bit Floating Point Port and SIMD 128-bit Integer. The chip produces up to 75.3W of thermal power which is a bit more than the XP 2000+, but has a built-in thermal monitoring and an advanced thermal throttling system. Unit Retail Cost is approx.: $830 CDN

The Pentium 4 chip kicks the but off the Athlon XP2000+ in the first round of benchmarks with Internet Content Creation by a lead of 16 points. The tables turn however when we look at Office productivity, where the Athlon XP 2000+ positively kills the P4 with a lead of almost 50 points.

SuperPI	Source: SuperPI

SuperPI calculates the number PI to 1 Million digits in this raw number crunching benchmark. The benchmark is fairly diverse and allows the user to change the number of digits of PI that can be calculated from 16 Thousand to 32 Million. The benchmark, which uses 19 iterations in the test, is set 1 Million digits.

Lower numbers denote faster calculation times (seconds), and hence, better performance.

Super PI (1 Million digits) Benchmark Results
	Processor	seconds	Ranking
1.	Athlon XP2000+	75 sec
2.	Pentium4 2.0GHz	95 sec

SuperPI is a new benchmark for us, and more fun than anything else. While it takes only 95 seconds on the Pentium 4 for SuperPi to calculate Pi to 1,000,000 digits, it takes just 75 seconds on the Athlon XP 2000+. AMD chips have always been known for their number crunching qualities, something which has made them the darlings of gamers around the world.

Sisoft Sandra 001	Source: SiSoft

SiSoft Sandra has been around for some time, and in this series of tests for CPU, Memory and Multimedia the Athlon XP 2000+ just kills the Pentium 4. It's almost painful to watch a $800CDN chip being out performed by one that is almost half the price.