Conclusion

The major conclusion, which we can draw as a result of this test session, sounds as follows. Even though Athlon 64 processors have internal architecture very similar to that of Athlon XP processors, they still differ from their predecessors quite significantly from the practical point of view. We can’t give you a definite answer to the question, if Athlon 64 has become any faster than Athlon XP. In fact, this is just a different processor.

Moreover, there is also not much we could say about the performance of Athlon 64 in 64bit applications or at least in 64bit operation systems and 32bit applications. Supposedly, x86-64 will ensure a significant performance improvement, but it is also quite possible that x86-64 will not receive a warm welcome from the software developers. AMD has already tried to promote its own instructions set a while ago, and this experience could hardly be regarded as a success, to tell the truth. 3DNow! instructions set failed to become widely spread even though it proved to be very convenient to work with. So, we can only wait here for the first signs for or against these suppositions.

Speaking about the performance of Athlon 64 in traditional 32bit applications we can say that this new CPU boasts a few very remarkable and strong features: large L2 cache, high-performance memory subsystem and SSE2 instructions support. On the other scale we see relatively low core frequency. As a result, we see either a performance boost or a performance drop depending on each particular application and its critical parameters.

For example, Athlon 64 is not very successful in traditional calculating tasks, such as scientific calculations or 3D rendering. But as soon as we get to games or info compression, it appears beyond any competition. In general, if we compare the performance of Athlon 64 2800+ with that of Athlon XP 2800+, we will have to admit that the latter appeared slower than our today’s hero in quite a bit of benchmarks.

And in conclusion, I would like to remind you once again that this article is none other but the first look at AMD Athlon 64 performance. By the time it is launched officially this fall, a lot of things may change. For instance, AMD may raise the core clock frequency of these processors.