Well, today we are going to compare the performance of two processors from Intel and AMD, namely Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz and AMD Athlon XP 2800+. These two top models are now rated similarly, which makes the comparison really interesting.

As a result we assembled two testbeds. Here is their configuration:

Testbed 1:

• Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz CPU;
• ABIT TH7II mainboard;
• 1024MB PC800 RDRAM;
• NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600 graphics card;
• IBM DTLA 7,200rpm 20GB HDD.

Testbed 2:

• AMD Athlon 2800+ CPU;
• ASUS A7V8X mainboard;
• 1024MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM;
• NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600 graphics card;
• IBM DTLA 7,200rpm 20GB HDD.

We used the following software for our tests:

• Windows XP SP1;
• Adobe Photoshop 7.01.

As usual, we followed the tradition, which has formed a while ago already and which we have unveiled to you several times in our previous test sessions in Adobe Photoshop. Namely, we didn't use any scripts for our measurements, but ran everything "manually" by performing the most widely spread Photoshop operations and measuring the time each of them took with a stop-watch. So, the smaller is the value on the diagram, the better is the result, as you understand. Each operation was run three times and the system was rebooted every time before starting the new test round. The three results for each operation were averaged. To run the tests we used Dune.tif file from Photoshop distributive enlarged up to 4000x4000 pixels (the end file was 45.7MB big).

Performance

Benchmark 1: Gaussian Blur

The filters from the Blur section serve to smoothen very contrasting image segments and are really helpful for curing grainy images. Gaussian Blur filter allows setting the radius of action for this filter, within which all the pixels will be averaged. Gaussian Blur is one of the most frequently used Photoshop filters. In order to load the processor, mainboard and memory quite heavily, we set a pretty large radius. It is equal to 75 pixels, which is not very common for usual tasks.

Benchmark 2: Smart Blur

This is one more kind of "smoothing" filters. It allows changing far more parameters than Gaussian Blur:

Benchmark 3: Diffuse Glow

Benchmark 4: Glass

This filter is just ideal to model some glass wall between the image and the viewer. The settings are really diverse, which offers a user a rich choice of different effects.

Benchmark 5: Crystallize

Well, the name of this filter speaks for itself. As for the available settings, there is only one: cell size.

Benchmark 6: Lens Flare

Here are some settings provided for this filter:

Benchmark 7: Lighting Effects

This filter allows creating a great lot of various lighting effects. It has a lot of adjustable settings, which determine this diversity.

Lens Flare and Lightning Effects filters refer to Render filters group, which means that the effects of this group of filters are all calculated mostly by the math1ematic co-processor.

Benchmark 8: Sharpen Edges

This filter is used basically to smoothen the borders and edges when the colors change very radically from one to another. The filter doesn't have any settings at all.

Benchmark 9: Unsharp Mask

This filter is aimed at sharpening the image and increasing its contrast. In other words, it does just the opposite thing to what Gaussian Blur is.

Benchmark 10: Bas Relief

This filter applies relief to the selected image.

Benchmark 11: Water Paper

Bas Relief and Water Paper benchmarks belong to the same Sketch filter group.

Benchmark 12: Extrude

Extrude filter allows getting really funny effects. Something like this:

In this benchmark the settings looked as follows:

Benchmark 13: Find Edges

Find Edges filter allows making the borders between different colors a bit sharper and more evident.

Benchmark 14: Rotate Canvas

We carried out two rotations: by 1^o and by 99^o clockwise.

Benchmark 15: Convert to Other Color Systems

As you remember, the initial image was in RGB format. We converted it to Grayscale, CMYK and Lab Color.

Conclusion

Well, the tests show that in Blur filters the leadership belongs to Intel Pentium 4 processor. In fact, there is nothing to be surprised at, since these filters are traditionally optimized for Intel CPUs. However, in the typical "computing" tasks such as Rotate Canvas, for instance, the best results belong to Athlon XP processor, which it definitely owes to a more efficient FPU unit.

All in all, you will probably agree with us that the both tested platforms can be regarded as equally fast in Adobe Photoshop 7.01. Now we can't wait to see what is the new Pentium 4 3.06GHz with HyperThreading is worth in applications like that.

Make sure you don't miss the new review!