Intel ramps it up to 2.8GHz

By Ben Hardwidge and Steve Malone

Posted on 27 Aug 2002 at 14:16

Chip giant Intel has released four new versions of the Pentium processor. The top-of the-range chip now runs at 2.8GHz outperforming the new rival AMD Athlon chips launched last week.

There are four new parts. The 2.5 and 2.6GHz versions run with a system bus clocked at 400MHz whilst the 2.66 and 2.8GHz models use the 533MHz system bus. Intel says all components have a 512K level 2 cache and are manufacturered on its new 0.13 micron process.

We tested the 2.8GHz part with the new AGP 8x SiS648 motherboard chipset and the same ATi Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card that we tested the Athlon XP 2600+ with, although our tests showed strengths and weaknesses in different areas.

The 2.8GHz chip scored on overall 1.62 in our 2D benchmarks (a reference score of 1 is a 2GHz Pentium 4 with 256MB of RAM), which while incredibly fast, is not quite as quick as the 1.65 we got from the Athlon. The Intel part did, however score marginally better on our word processing and spreadsheet tests, and also inched in front in our 2D graphics test - although it was the vector-based Corel Draw benchmark that pushed it in front, while the Athlon was slightly quicker in Photoshop and substantially quicker in database work.

Meanwhile, the 2.66GHz part, fell into line with expectations with an overall score of 1.50. So it's not quite as quick as the new chips, but is also ahead of anything we'd seen previously.

3D performance, however, is where Intel is still king. With the Radeon 9700 Pro and a 2.8GHz Pentium 4, we managed to achieve 3DMark2001SE scores of 14,728 in 32-bit XGA and 12,328 in SXGA - a good 810 in front of the Athlon.

However, the AMD is likely to be the cheaper chip and remains our top recommendation for the moment. If you want the quicker 3D performance then go for the Pentium 4, but you're likely to pay a lot for the extra and the Athlon is still comparably quick, if not quicker in some areas in 2D. Quite how long the Athlon's architecture will be able to stick it out in the clock wars, however, remains to be seen.

Prices for the parts start at $243 for the 2.5GHz part rising to $508 for the 2.8GHz chip.