X-bit labs

AMD Athlon 64 3400+ CPU Review (page 10)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

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

Performance in Scientific Applications

To test the CPUs in scientific applications we used a new beta-version of the ScienceMark 2.0 test package, which measures how fast the tested platforms can solve real mathematic modeling tasks.

One of the most significant advantages of the Athlon architecture is a powerful FPU unit, which is very actively used in applications like that. That is why it is not at all surprising that even Athlon XP 3200+ demonstrated very high results in ScienceMark 2.0. Athlon 64 3400+ works at the same clock frequency but features larger L2 cache and an integrated memory controller, which actually do not improve its performance in ScienceMark 2.0 that much. However, even despite this fact we cannot accuse this CPU of low performance compared with the competitors.

Moreover, we have also tested the performance of our today’s racers in a popular symbol calculations package aka Mathematica 5.0 from Wolfram Research. To do this we used a benchmark, which is described in detail here.

And again Athlon architecture shows its real best. Intel processors are significantly behind even Athlon XP, not to mention the newer Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX. Here I have to say that Athlon 64 FX-51 and Athlon 64 3400+ again perform very close to one another.