Pentium 4 takes on modern CPUs in a benchmarking showdown, suffers ignominious defeat
If there's one thing that bugs us about desktop component reviews, it's that they tend to compare the latest hardware against the stuff immediately preceding it. Everyone wants to know what the improvements between generations are, but for many it's also equally useful to know how 2010's freshness compares to their own computers, which might have been bought or built a few years back. For those precious prospective upgraders, Tech Report have put together an extremely thorough benchmarking session which compares the venerable Pentium 4 670 and its silly 3.8GHz clock speed to a pair of new budget parts: the Core i3-530 from Intel and quad-core Athlon II X4 635 from AMD. Naturally, they've also included other contemporary parts like the high-end Core i7s and Phenoms, as well as a Core 2 Quad Q6600 from a couple of years ago to bridge the gap between the ancient 90nm Prescott and the 32nm young pretenders. It's all quite fascinating in the geekiest (and therefore best) of ways, so why not hit that source link and get reading.
