The IBM Intellistation M Pro at 733MHz: With dual processors, 64MB pro graphics card, and embedded IBM security chip, everything you need in a mid-range design system: Table 1 -- Real World Tests

In order to test out the difference in speed and power an upgrade to a new Pentium III dual 733MHz system would give me, I compared the IBM Intellistation to my current dual 400MHz system in a number of real world tests. Benchmarks are great as far as a determination of raw speed in very specific tasks, but to most people they have little meaning. By testing the system in a number of common processor-intensive situations, in a variety of design software, I find I get a better indicator of overall performance speed-up.

As would be expected, the dual 733MHz Pentium III Intellistation easily produced around twice the speed of my older system in just about every test. There were a few anomalies which brought the overall average to 1.76 times the speed. I'm not sure what caused the slower performance in these few tests -- program launch in Photoshop and Media Studio Pro, save animation in Inspire 3D, and save page as EPS in Quark Xpress. I can only speculate that it might be the hard drive speed which is causing the slightly slower times on the test system.

The hard drive in the IBM test system is a 9GB IBM Ultrastar 18ES which is a 7200rpm Ultra2 SCSI LVD hard drive, while the base system has a 10,000rpm 9GB Seagate Cheetah Ultra2 SCSI LVD drive. This may account for the slightly slower speeds in these save-to-disk, and access-disk tasks. The Intellistation M Pro does offer the option of a 9GB or 18GB 10,000rpm Ultra2 SCSi disk, but the test system had the 7,200rpm model.

TABLE 1: REAL WORLD TESTS
	SYSTEM 1: IBM Intellistation M Pro Pentium III 733MHz (x2)	*SYSTEM 2: Pentium II 400MHz (x2)**	Speed Improvement
Adobe Photoshop
Full program install from CD-ROM	40.31 secs	62.19 secs	1.54X
Apply Radial Blur Filter (20MB file)	10mins49secs	24mins34secs	2.27X
Average Image Load (20MB file)	1.59 secs	2.24 secs	1.41X
Average Launch Program, Load Image	9.76 secs	8.53 secs	0.87X
Image Rotate 90 degrees (20MB file)	0.45 secs	1.39 secs	3.09X

MetaCreations Bryce 3D
Full program install from CD-ROM	30.91 secs	45.73 secs	1.48X
Render 768x512 Image, Highest Quality	10.14 secs	21.28 secs	2.10X

NewTek Inspire 3D
Full program install from CD-ROM	1 min 53 secs	2 mins 27 secs	1.30X
Image render 640x480	3 mins 0 secs	5 mins 24 secs	1.80X
Save animation, 20 frames, 320x240	7 mins 26 secs	6 mins 23 secs	0.86X

Quark Xpress
50MB image file import	0.90 secs	1.90 secs	2.10X
Save page as EPS (11x17)	13.41 secs	11.69 secs	0.87X
Average Launch Program, Load File (7MB file)	2.61 secs	5.22 secs	2.0X
Average File Open (7MB file)	0.46 secs	0.81 secs	1.76X

3D Studio MAX
Render Image (800x600)	25 secs	49 secs	1.96X
Render Image (1000x600)	48 secs	96 secs	2.00X
Render animation to AVI (50 frames, 320x240, environmental effects)	4 mins 18 secs	8 mins 11 secs	1.90X
Render animation to AVI (120 frames, 640x480, particle effects)	1 min 58 secs	3 mins 36 secs	1.83X
Render animation to AVI (200 frames, 800x600)	6 min 7 secs	11 mins 20 secs	1.85X
Average launch program	2.33 secs	3.82 secs	1.64X

Ulead Media Studio Pro
Make Preview #1 (with video filter)	1 min 7 secs	2 mins 7 secs	1.90X
Make Preview #1 (without video filter)	32 secs	1 min 0 secs	1.88X
Make Preview #2	39.27 secs	83.05 secs	2.11X
Make Preview #3 (with video filter, Contour)	44.89 secs	89.02 secs	1.98X
Make Preview #3 (with video filter, Wind)	1 min 6 secs	2 mins 19 secs	2.11X
Make Preview #3 (without video filter, 640x480)	2 mins 28 secs	4 mins 47 secs	1.94X
Average launch program	10.60 secs	10.16 secs	0.96X

Average Speed Increase from base test system:			1.76X

* Base test system is a dual 400MHz Pentium II with 256MB ECC SDRAM, Intel 440BX PCI chipset, Diamond FireGL 1000 8MB AGP graphics card, 9GB Seagate Cheetah 10,000 RPM hard drive, and Windows NT 4.0.