The today’s announcement of many new Intel processors made a few corrections to the current situation in the CPU market. Intel really launched 7 new CPUs targeted for the mainstream and high-end market segments. Among the newcomers there are faster Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, the top CPU on Northwood core, and the entire family of new Pentium 4 processors with the new Prescott core. Since the changes in the market promise to be really drastic, we decided to carry out a massive test session of all the new processor models, where they could compete with their predecessors and rivals from AMD.

Within this test session and performance analysis we will compare the speed of 14 different newest processors positioned as solutions for the mainstream and high-end market. The list of testing participants includes the representatives of the following processor families available in the today’s CPU market and priced at $200 and more: Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, Intel Pentium 4 (Northwood), Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott), AMD Athlon 64 FX, AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Athlon XP.

Testing Participants

According to the selection criteria we set for this test session, the following processors were selected to participate:

• AMD Athlon 64 3400+, 3200+, 3000+;
• AMD Athlon 64 FX-51;
• AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 3000+;
• Intel Pentium 4 3.4, 3.2, 3.0 (Northwood core);
• Intel Pentium 4 3.4E, 3.2E, 3.0E (Prescott core);
• Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4, 3.2.

We have already reviewed many of the above mentioned processor models, so if you would like to get more details about any of them, please check our CPU section. As for the newcomers announced today, we have devoted the whole new article to the peculiarities of the freshly launched Prescott core. It is called Intel Prescott: One More Willamette-Like Slow Processor or a Worthy Piece? As for Pentium 4 (Northwood) 3.4GHz and Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz, they are the overclocked versions of the previous models of these processor families. These two CPUs are based on 0.13micron cores, and are evidently the last CPU models on these cores (Northwood and Gallatin, respectively). Yes, as we have already mentioned in the previous article, Pentium4  processor family will continue into this world on the new Prescott core manufactured with 90nm technology process, while Pentium 4 Extreme Edition with the working frequencies exceeding 3.4GHz is not on the roadmap at all yet.

From left to right:
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, Intel Pentium 4 (Northwood), Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott),
AMD Athlon 64 FX, AMD Athlon 64, AMD Athlon XP

The comparative table below contains the major specifications of the tested CPUs for your information: