X-bit labs

AMD Athlon 64 3400+ CPU Review

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 01/05/2004 | 10:05 PM ]

We have reviewed the new AMD processor, which appears to be the fastest processor in the today’s market. Check out the performance of AMD Athlon 64 3400+ in four dozens of tests to make your slightest doubts vanish!

Table of contents:

• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance in Gaming Applications
  
• Performance in Office and Digital Content Creation Applications
  
• Performance in Archiving Utilities
  
• Performance in Audio and Video Content Encoding Applications
  
• Performance in Scientific Applications
  
• Performance in FineReader
  
• Performance in 3ds max and Cinema
  
• Performance in Photoshop
  
• Performance in AutoCAD
  
• Overclocking
  
• Conclusion
  

The beginning of the year 2004 was marked by the announcement of a new AMD Athlon 64 processor model. The new CPU is rated as 3400+ and differs from the predecessor with 3200+ performance rating by the higher working frequency, which has grown up to 2.2GHz. This way, the CPU family with AMD64 architecture positioned by AMD Company for the mass market now includes three processor models: 3000+, 3200+ and 3400+.

These three company’s offerings are priced very differently, that is why those of you who wish to acquire a Socket754 platform have something to choose from. In this article we are going to find out what the newcomer from AMD, Athlon 64 3400+, is capable of, if it will be able to become a worthy competitor to the top Intel processors, and what it actually looks against the background of the already existing AMD processors.

In fact, AMD Athlon 64 3400+ is absolutely identical to Athlon 64 3200+ with that only difference that it works at 200MHz higher core clock frequency, which is now equal to 2.2GHz. Besides that, there are no other differences. The newcomer, just like Athlon 64 3200+ and Athlon FX-51, features a 1MB L2 cache. This way the maximum working frequency of the Athlon 64 processor family has now reached that of Athlon 64 FX-51, so that now the only difference between Athlon 64 3400+ and Athlon 64 FX-51 is the memory controller: Athlon 64 FX-51 features a dual-channel memory controller requiring Registered DIMM modules, while Athlon 64 3400+ features a single-channel memory controller supporting regular memory modules. The table below will help you figure out all the distinguishing features of the today’s AMD processors based on Athlon 64 architecture:

I have to stress that Athlon 64 3400+ is based on the same C0 core stepping, which is now used in all contemporary processors on AMD64 architecture, including Opteron, Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX-51. you can clearly see it from the CPUZ utility: