P4 nudges ahead of Athlon XP

Intel today launched three new desktop P4s, with its fastest clock speeds to date. And more importantly, they incorporate support for the 533MHz frontside bus, through the new Rambus 850E chipset. This delivers 30 per cent more data throughput than the 400MHz option. The three new chips run 2.53GHz, 2.4GHz and 2.25GHz and cost $637, $562, and $423 when you buy a thousand units.

With today's launches, Intel at last appears to have caught up and overtaken AMD on the desktop performance front. Tom's Hardware ran a head-to-head between the P4/2533 and the AMD Athlon XP 2100+, and concludes:

"In all 25 benchmark tests, the Intel Pentium 4/2533 is ahead of the AMD Athlon XP 2100+. A 33% increase in FSB and RDRAM clock put the latest Pentium 4 out of reach for AMD's Athlon XP. At least for the time being." The full report can be found over at Tom's Hardware.

News source: The Reg