Business/General Use Performance

Business Winstone 2004

Business Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:

. Microsoft Access 2002
. Microsoft Excel 2002
. Microsoft FrontPage 2002
. Microsoft Outlook 2002
. Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
. Microsoft Project 2002
. Microsoft Word 2002
. Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003
. WinZip 8.1

Business Winstone 2004

 

Office Productivity SYSMark 2004

SYSMark's Office Productivity suite consists of three tests, the first of which is the Communication test. The Communication test consists of the following:

"The user receives an email in Outlook 2002 that contains a collection of documents in a zip file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while VirusScan 7.0 scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0. Finally, Internet Explorer is used to look at samples of the web pages and documents created during the scenario."

Communication SYSMark 2004

The next test is Document Creation performance, which shows very little difference in drive performance between the contenders:

"The user edits the document using Word 2002. He transcribes an audio file into a document using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6. Once the document has all the necessary pieces in place, the user changes it into a portable format for easy and secure distribution using Acrobat 5.0.5. The user creates a marketing presentation in PowerPoint 2002 and adds elements to a slide show template."

Document Creation SYSMark 2004

The final test in our Office Productivity suite is Data Analysis, which BAPCo describes as:

"The user opens a database using Access 2002 and runs some queries. A collection of documents are archived using WinZip 8.1. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet using Excel 2002 and are used to generate graphical charts.

Data Analysis SYSMark 2004

Microsoft Office XP SP-2

Here we see in that the purest of office application tests, performance doesn't vary all too much.

Microsoft Office XP with SP-2

Mozilla 1.4

Quite possibly the most frequently used application on any desktop is the one we pay the least amount of attention to when it comes to performance. While a bit older than the core that is now used in Firefox, performance in Mozilla is worth looking at as many users are switching from IE to a much more capable browser on the PC - Firefox.

Mozilla 1.4

ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0

ACDSee is a popular image editing tool that is great for basic image editing options such as batch resizing, rotating, cropping and other such features that are too elementary to justify purchasing something as powerful as Photoshop for. There are no extremely complex filters here, just pure batch image processing.

ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0

Ahead Software Nero Express 6.0.0.3

While it was a major issue in the past, these days buffer underrun errors while burning a CD or DVD are few and far between thanks to high performance CPUs as well as vastly improved optical drives. When you take the optical drive out of the equation, how do these CPU's stack up with burning performance?

Ahead Software Nero Express 6.0.0.3

Winzip

WinZip Computing WinZip 8.1

WinRAR 3.40

Pulling the hard disk out of the equation we can get a much better idea of which processors are truly best suited for file compression. While the hard drive hid a lot of the shortcomings of the Athlon XP in WorldBench's WinZip test, they are all revealed in WinRAR's built in benchmark that is largely disk I/O independent.

WinRAR 3.40 Archiving Performance

The Test Multitasking Content Creation Performance
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  • pplapeu - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    why do you no longer overclock?

    you know users will do that. What if this processor was dialed up 10%, it would clock at 4.18Ghz and could run faster. I think the performance tales would be far different.
  • Staples - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link

    Well the CEO did step down a few days ago. I hope we see better management soon. This is an embarrasment for Intel. Ever since the A64 came out, Intel has been releasing backseat products.
  • IntelUser2000 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link

    No, its that most of you guys are AMD biased. Say Intel does release a high-performing Pentium M architecture based chip. Then you guys will just shut up and say nothing else. If AMD comes with 5% performance lead, AMD is thought of as GOD or something. Probably even greater. And about BTX, Pentium M does run pretty cool, but at 21W, that was equal to initial 0.18 micron P3's. Actually some of the DESKTOP P3's had ~15W TDP. I heard 286's and 386's had less than 5W TDP. Cooler, and faster is always better. Granted you may not need as much if your processor runs hotter, but still its necessary. It's also mentioned that since quiet PCs are gaining popularity, BTX can help a lot since it will allow graphics cards to have smaller fans.

    Another 3.8GHz P4 link: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041115/index.htm...

    Quite contrary to their 3.6GHz throttling article, they seem positive towards 3.8GHz P4.
  • fawifewaewaf - Sunday, November 10, 2013 - link

    diaff cretin
  • mlittl3 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link

    #35,

    Do you know that the long post of #21 is the author of the article you just read (which is way longer than any post) and the owner of Anandtech? Do you see the post is from ANAND Lal Shimpi? And that his post was in response to the other long post which Anand saw as important enough to respond to.

    I enjoy all the comments on this site, long and short. It gives readers a sort of "behind the scenes" look at hardware and software. I think there should be no restrictions as it currently stands.

    Keep 'em coming. Go Anandtech :)
  • bob661 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link

    Based on #32's link, it would seem that the P4's would decrease in performance during sustained use with an average user. So unless you're an enthusiast, you would not see the full performance of any of the new P4's.
  • Alphafox78 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link

    There should be a size limit on posts...
  • GTMan - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link

    Does the EDB functionality lower system performance when it is turned on?
  • Auteur - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link

    #12:

    The only reason HardOCP uses DVD2AVI in their bench marking suite is its the only Divx front end that runs faster on AMD cpu's than Intel's. Its a dead app (the author no longer updates it) that can't IVTC, deinterlace, clean or sharpen video. Its great for demuxing audio and thats it.

    Intel's chips dominate when you use the popular front ends like AutoGK, Gordian Knot or Xmpeg. Read Doom9's forum if you don't believe me.
  • langles - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link

    Did you read the article at Tom's Hardware this weekend about the thermal issues with the Pentium 4 3.6 GHz?

    http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041114/index.htm...
    "The Heat Can Cause Intel's P4 To Throttle And Damage Over Time"

    I would expect that this issue is even worse for the 3.8 GHz.

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