MaximumPC 2003 12

Reviews

DECEMBER 2003 MAXIMUMPC 47

AMD*

CPU: Athlon 64 FX-51

CLOCK SPEED: 2.2GHz

L1 CACHE: 128K

L2 CACHE: 1MB

L3 CACHE: N/A

TRANSISTOR COUNT: 106 million

PROCESS: 130nm

DIE SIZE: 193mm^2

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:

AMD64, MMX, SSE2, 3DNow Pro!

SYSTEM BUS: 2.2GHz

Intel*

CPU: Pentium 4 Extreme Edition

CLOCK SPEED: 3.2GHz

L1 CACHE: 8K

L2 CACHE: 512K

L3 CACHE: 2MB

TRANSISTOR COUNT: 178 million

PROCESS: 130nm

DIE SIZE: 237mm^2

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:

MMX, SSE, SSE2

SYSTEM BUS: 800MHz

Apple*

CPU: Power PC 970 (G5)

CLOCK SPEED: 2GHz

L1 CACHE: 32K

L2 CACHE: 512K

L3 CACHE: N/A

TRANSISTOR COUNT: 58 million

PROCESS: 130nm

DIE SIZE: 118mm^2

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:

Altivec

SYSTEM BUS: 1GHz (half core

CPU speed)

• For our three-way showdown, we
  used the fastest-clocked version of
  each company’s new chip; slower chip
  versions are not represented in this
  article. For Mac testing, we used a
  dual-processor G5 machine, as Apple
  is selling this configuration as a desk-
  top computer. We could have pitted the
  G5 against dual-proc machines from
  Intel and AMD, but these machines
  aren’t necessarily the most powerful
  PCs, and we wanted this showdown to
  be a three-way desktop battle.