Idézet:Since Intel can't expedite the release of bandwidth-intensive applications or directly force SSE2 optimizations upon developers, they are playing the one card in their hand that they know sells well: clock speed. The 1.7GHz part under scrutiny today represents an important step for the chip giant in that it will either help validate their latest architectural release as the performance leader or serve as the next step in a debilitating game of catch-up.
Idézet: Basically, Pentium 4 is a new design, which has some problems with today's software. Particularly office applications like Word or Excel, but also current 3D-games perform quite a bit worse on Pentium 4 than on Athlon, although the AMD-processor runs at lower clock speeds. Once software has been compiled for Pentium 4 however, the trace cache architecture is able to show its advantages. The same is valid for Pentium 4's floating-point performance. While Pentium 4's normal FPU lags significantly behind Athlon's FPU, the Intel processor comes with the new SSE2-extensions, which offer very high FPU-performance for applications that are able to benefit from streaming floating point operations and that are actually programmed or at least compiled for the usage of the SSE2-extensions. In summary you could say that Pentium 4's architecture doesn't make it exactly a top-notch performer right now, but it could perform a lot better in the future, once applications have been optimized for this processor. High clock speeds are the best way to cover up Pentium 4's performance problems with current software, which is why Intel was eager to release Pentium 4 1.7 GHz as soon as possible.