3DMark Performance

3DMark Performance
RivaTNT @ 800x800, 16bbp
Pentium 3 - 560	2530
Pentium 3 - 500	2439
Celeron - 550A	2497
Pentium 2 - 500	2438
Pentium 2 - 450	2386
Pentium 2 - 400	2311
Celeron - 333	2045

3DMark Performance
Voodoo2 Single @ 800x800, 16bbp
Pentium 3 - 560	2341
Pentium 3 - 500	2298
Celeron - 550A	2310
Pentium 2 - 500	2280
Pentium 2 - 450	2221
Pentium 2 - 400	2160
Celeron - 333	1988

3DMark Performance
Voodoo2 SLI @ 800x800, 16bbp
Pentium 3 - 560	3398
Pentium 3 - 500	3290
Celeron - 550A	3369
Pentium 2 - 500	3289
Pentium 2 - 450	3224
Pentium 2 - 400	3105
Celeron - 333	2432

All 3DMark tests were used with standard video display settings, and without using overclocked video memory/chipsets. From these scores, the Pentium III's slight performance advantage over the P2 dwindles, and the overclocked Celeron is able to keep up with the overclocked P3 MHz for MHz. SLI with Voodoo2 still rules the 3DMark tests, but again, in a scene with greater than 4MB and 8MB textures, the Voodoo's major weaknesses are apparent.

An interesting note here on 3DMark's System Info window: It is smart enough not to recognize the CPU as a Pentium II or Celeron processor and also registers only 32KB of L1 cache. Winbench99 and Winstone99 report the same value as well.

Something I'd like to reiterate is that none of the tests performed have been specifically optimized for the Pentium III or the new SSE instructions. Until such benchmarking tools become available (or a SSE-enabled game with a reliable timedemo is released), there is no real way to measure the overall benefit of the Pentium III's greatest addition. However, as we detailed in the earlier parts of our review, talks with several big game developers have revealed performance increases of somewhere between 10 to 25 percent. As soon as something tangible (for us to test) becomes available, we'll update the scores with SSE-performance numbers.