Comparison of Intel Pentium III and Pentium 4 Processor Performance White Paper

4

The Pentium 4 processor is optimized for large data sets transfer and handling. This means the customer will see significantly improved performance over previous generation Pentium III processors in applications that handle and require large amounts of data. This will apply to all vertical applications and many horizontal applications, such as financial analysis applications, where handling large data sets is the norm. For a limited number of horizontal applications, such as Microsoft Word, performance is not enhanced and can even suffer, though differences are typically made up for by faster processor speeds enabled by the new processor architecture. However, it should be noted that the trend in office applications is for greater and greater usage of graphics. Use of graphics presupposes the existence of data-intensive graphics-generation applications, which benefit greatly (and noticeably to the user) from Pentium 4 enhancements. Moreover, as noted above, the trend is also to increasing use of java technology and XML in Office XP, Windows XP and Web services. Nevertheless, in the short term, if the customer’s need is primarily for office applications and there is a budget constraint, Pentium III may still offer an acceptable solution. However, the customer should be aware that Compaq expects that, in the near future, office applications will be handling much more data requiring the architectural advantages the Pentium 4 possesses.

Perhaps more important for the user is the fact that higher processor speeds from Intel will only be available in the future in the Pentium 4. The Pentium III will offer no further increases in processor speeds. (Intel will continue to refresh Celeron processors, however). This is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the roadmap for of Intel processor technology. This means that regardless of the application, improvements in performance can only be obtained by greater processor speed available from Intel in the Pentium 4 processor.

Figure 1: Roadmap of Intel Processor Evolution