We benchmarked the CPUs’ overall performance by using the SYSmark2004, a program that simulates the use of real-world applications. Thus, we consider this the best software to measure, in practical terms, the system performance.

The benchmarks are divided into two groups:

• Internet Content Creation: Simulates the authoring of a website containing text, images, videos and animations. The following programs are used: Adobe After Effects 5.5, Adobe Photoshop 7.01, Adobe Premiere 6.5, Discreet 3ds Max 5.1, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Flash MX, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9, McAfee VirusScan 7.0 and Winzip 8.1.
• Office Productivity: Simulates the use of an office suite, i.e. simulates sending e-mails, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. The following programs are used: Adobe Acrobat 5.05, Microsoft Office XP SP2, Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1, NaturallySpeaking 6, McAfee VirusScan 7.0 and Winzip 8.1.

This software delivers several results, all of them using a specific SYSmark2004 unit. First we have a SYSmark2004 overall score. Then we have a group result for each batch listed above. And for each batch, we have specific results: 3D Creation, 2D Creation and Web Publication for Internet Content Creation; and Communication, Document Creation and Data Analysis for Office Productivity.

You can see the results in the graphic below:

	Sempron 3000+(1.8 GHz)	Celeron D 331(2.66 GHz)	Difference
SYSmark2004 - Score	138	110	+25.45%
Internet Content Creation - Score	149	120	+24.17%
3D Creation	144	110	+30.91%
2D Creation	169	132	+28.03%
WEB Publication	136	118	+15.25%
Office Productivity - Score	128	101	+26.73%
Communication	122	94	+29.79%
Document Creation	139	102	+36.27%
Data Analysis	123	106	+16.04%

Sempron 3000+ (1.8 GHz) achieved performance, in average, 26% superior to the Celeron D 331 (2.66 GHz) on SYSmark2004.

Although the Intel CPU has 860 MHz more than the AMD model tested, it was beaten in all the tests performed by SYSmark. Really impressive.