Intel's Pentium 4 3.06GHz: Hyper-Threading on Desktops

3D Rendering Performance using SSE2

While 3dsmax 5 is SSE2 optimized, the level of optimization is nowhere near what NewTek reported with Lightwave upon releasing version 7.0b. The performance improvements offered by the new SSE2 optimized version were all above 20% using NewTek's supplied benchmarking scenes.

We chose three benchmarks to use, two of the lesser SSE2 optimized scenes and another that is more optimized just to get an idea of the potential that lies for Pentium 4 users running heavily optimized application

3D Rendering Performance Lightwave 3D 7.5 - raytrace (Render Time in Seconds - Lower is Better) Intel Pentium 4-HT 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (2.25GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.0AGHz (400MHz FSB) AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.80GHz) Intel Pentium 4 1.8AGHz (400MHz FSB) AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) 99.2 107.8 118.5 132.0 136.3 139.9 149.6 164.3 165.3 177.1 191.4 | 0 | 38 | 77 | 115 | 153 | 191 | 230

Where SSE2 comes into play, the Pentium 4 truly excels and can overshadow the Athlon XP's strong x87 FP capabilities.

3D Rendering Performance Lightwave 3D 7.5 - radiosity_reflective_things (Render Time in Seconds - Lower is Better) Intel Pentium 4-HT 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.0AGHz (400MHz FSB) Intel Pentium 4 1.8AGHz (400MHz FSB) AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (2.25GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.80GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) 48.6 52.2 57.6 65.6 72.6 82.7 91.0 94.4 110.6 119.2 129.1 | 0 | 26 | 52 | 77 | 103 | 129 | 155

We see even more SSE2 optimized functions in the radiosity_reflective_things scene, but watch as things change once we switch scenes:

3D Rendering Performance Lightwave 3D 7.5 - sunset (Render Time in Seconds - Lower is Better) AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (2.25GHz) AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13GHz) Intel Pentium 4-HT 3.06GHz AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.80GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz) AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.0AGHz (400MHz FSB) Intel Pentium 4 1.8AGHz (400MHz FSB) 42.1 49.0 51.3 52.3 56.4 56.6 61.4 61.5 68.8 77.7 86.5 | 0 | 17 | 35 | 52 | 69 | 87 | 104

Now the Athlon XP has the lead; it just goes to show you that the days of absolute performance leaders are gone, you can only hope to pick the processor that does better overall.