Desktop CPU Comparison - September 99

Benchmark Summary

The graphs speak for themselves, under NT, true power can be seen much more clearly than under 98.  The meaning behind that is twofold, it takes a considerable more power to excel under NT and conversely an extreme amount of power is overkill for Windows 98, especially if all you're going to be running is a handful of office applications while you surf the net. 

It takes a bit more effort to achieve a high score under the High-End Winstone 99 test suite, as the HE tests are more FPU dependent than the basic business applications used in the Business Winstone test.  A secondary performance factor is, of course, L2 cache size and speed which helps the K6-III stand above and beyond its slower predecessors.  The Celeron performs decently in the benchmark, but clock for clock it loses out to the Pentium II/III.  Whether added price is worth the added performance the Pentium II/III will give you over the Celeron is up to you to decide.  Finally, the Athlon assumes a tremendous lead over the competition, who would've thought that AMD could have both the slowest and the fastest contributions to this test.