AMD Athlon XP 3200+ CPU with 400MHz Bus Review

by Ilya Gavrichenkov
05/13/2003 | 07:57 AM

This era of cut-throat competition between AMD Athlon XP and Intel Pentium 4 has little by little come to an end. The production technologies used by Intel and AMD today allow speeding up the existing processor architectures with much effort applied. The core clock rates potential has been almost exhausted and both processor developers will have to move to new manufacturing technologies as well as improve their current processor architectures. We have already talked about it multiple times on our site: Intel will start using 0.09micron production technology and producing Prescott based processors, while AMD will shift to 0.13micron SOI process (and then to 0.09micron SOI) and begins to make processors from Athlon 64 family. the today’s fastest Pentium 4 processor on Northwood core will be Pentium 4 3.2GHz, and the top-end model in the Athlon XP family will become a new solution rated as 3200+. This way, both processor giants will reach the upper limit of today’s technology at a certain parity, and will start a new round of competition on almost equal terms.

However, Intel and AMD used to increase and are increasing their CPU speeds unevenly.  That is why sometimes, Athlon XP could appear the fastest processor, and sometimes the leadership would be taken by Pentium 4: depending on the clock frequencies of the top models in the CPU family in each particular moment of time. As for the situation, which has been taking place until today, the top processor models from both manufacturers were Intel Pentium 3 3.0GHz and AMD Athlon XP 3000+, i.e. both companies could make only one more step forward before they would reach the top of the today’s technology. The first one to pull themselves together and do the final dash appeared AMD: Athlon XP 3200+ was announced today, on May 13. Intel decided to sustain a little pause. This manufacturer will introduce its Pentium 4 3.2GHz in June. This way, for almost about a month AMD can consider themselves an industry leader as the rating number of their new processor exceeds the frequency of the Intel ‘s top solution. However, this formal leadership if not that important: the company doesn’t get its major profit from selling top processor models. So, AMD can only be happy with moral satisfaction having launched a new Athlon XP 3200+.

NVIDIA managed to slightly overshadow the launching of the new Athlon XP 3200+ processor having launched their new GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics accelerator yesterday. However, it would be unfair to be so much carried away by the new graphics product that the new AMD solution remained unnoticed. Although the new AMD Athlon XP processor is based on the already familiar Barton core, there are some new features in it besides the higher working frequency that are worth taking a closer look at. Athlon XP 3200+ uses a faster 400MHz processor bus, which is AMD’s response to Intel’s recent Pentium 4 800MHz QPB launch.

Closer Look: Barton Processor with 400MHz FSB

So, what does the new Athlon XP 3200+ look like? All in all there is nothing brand new about it: the same Barton core as by the predecessors rated as 3000+, 2800+ and 2500+. The newcomer boasts only two distinguishing features: slightly higher core frequency, which is now equal to 2.2GHz and faster processor bus, which has been speeded up to 400MHz. In other words, in its Athlon XP 3200+ AMD has finally introduced exactly the feature, which we have been expecting for so long. The EV6 processor bus used for AMD Athlon processors has now reached its top speed: its frequency has doubled since the beginning of its successful career from 200MHz to 400MHz.

It was exactly the bus frequency increase from 333MHz to 400MHz that allowed AMD to add another 200 points to the current processor rating at the same time increasing its core clock just slightly. Thus, Athlon XP 3000+ worked at the actual 2.167GHz, and the today’s Athlon XP 3200+ supports 2.2GHz. However, as you know AMD’s processor rating indicates CPU average performance, so from this viewpoint this increase in CPU rating is absolutely justified.

2.2GHz is the maximum frequency Barton based CPUs could reach

The fact that AMD decided to speed up the processor bus again can be explained by both: marketing and technological reasons. On the one hand, the company had to respond to Intel’s initiative, to Intel’s new processor with 800MHz bus, and also gave “green light” to using DDR400 SDRAM in synchronous mode. On the other hand, the company stated increasing the CPU performance without raising their actual clock frequency that much. Barton is probably having difficulty working at core clock frequencies over 2.2GHz. This fact is proven by AMD’s decision to give up Athlon XP (Barton) working at 2.25GHz core clock and 333MHz FSB, although they have planned it before.

As a result, the current top Athlon XP processor model rated as 3200+ features the following specifications:

• Model number: 3200+;
• Processor core: Barton;
• Cache size: 128KB L1, 512KB L2 make the total of 640KB cache memory;
• Processor interface: Socket A;
• Production technology: 0.13micron copper interconnect technology;
• Die size: 101sq.mm;
• Transistors: 54.3mln;
• Nominal Vcore: 1.65V;
• Maximum core temperature: 85^oC;
• Typical heat dissipation: 60.4W;
• Maximum heat dissipation: 76.8W.

Going into details about the specs of Athlon XP 3200+ we should point out two important things. First, the higher heat dissipation of the new processor. As you remember Athlon XP 3000+ dissipates the maximum of 74.3W, while the newcomer dissipates 3% more heat though its core frequency grew up by only 1.5%. This certainly sets new requirements to cooling solutions to be used with this CPU. However, there is nothing dramatic about 76.8W heat dissipation: the maximum heat dissipation of the recently launched Pentium 4 3.0GHz is much higher and reaches 100W.

No comments are necessary:
Ajigo MF035-032 cooler recommended for Athlon XP 3200+ (right)
next to the boxed cooler for Pentium 4 3.0GHz (left).

The second thing is the processor bus frequency. Keeping in mind that there are two data packs transferred along the Athlon XP bus per clock, its bandwidth will grow up to 3.2GB/sec. to use 400MHz processor bus you will have to set FSB 200MHz on your mainboard. This way, DDR400 SDRAM will be the most optimal memory to be used with the new Athlon XP 3200+: this particular memory will work synchronously with the FSB ensuring minimal latencies and highest performance. This transition of Athlon XP platforms to DDR400 SDRAM is absolutely justified, because this memory type has been approved by both: core logic developers and memory suppliers. Even Intel supports the same memory type in its last chipset families aka i875 and i865.

Using dual-channel DDR400 SDRAM with NVIDIA nForce2 chipset
will ensure 6.4GB/sec memory bandwidth.

By using the so-called processor rating for CPUs marking AMD has made its life much simpler now. Without raising the CPU frequency, but just by increasing the L2 cache size or speeding up the processor bus, the company keeps competing with Intel quite successfully, as the latter still marks its CPUs with frequency values. Thus the newest Pentium 4 3.03GHz processor with 800MHz bus is in reality much faster than Pentium 4 3.06GHz CPU with 533MHz bus. Therefore, the comparison of Athlon XP 3000+ withy the new Pentium 4 3.0GHz and the old Pentium 4 3.06GHz may end up with a different conclusion. To make the situation somewhat clearer, let us compose a table showing the correspondence between the clock frequency, cache size, bus frequency and the AMD processor rating:

As we see, the working frequency of Athlon XP processors hasn’t been growing that much for quite a while now. It once again proves that Athlon architecture has already reached the top of its frequency potential. And if AMD wants to stay in high-performance desktop processors market, they have to think of something else. And this something will be the new Athlon 64 processor due this fall.

And in the meanwhile let’s return to our today’s hero: Athlon XP 3200+.

Athlon XP 3200+ on the left, Athlon XP 3000+ on the right.

It is very easy to tell the new Athlon from the predecessors. The CPU has got a slightly different packaging (the AMD logo and the “Assembled in Malaysia” stamp have been moved to a slightly different location). Also, the processor marking ends with “E” instead of “D”, which indicates that it is intended to work with 400MHz bus.

Chipset Compatibility

The major features of the new generation Socket A chipsets
will be the support of 400MHz bus and DDR400 SDRAM.

Since the new Athlon XP 3200+ processors work with faster bus, which hasn’t been used before, they require mainboards based on the new chipsets supporting 400MHz bus. All the major chipset developers, which have been producing Socket A chipsets before, such as NVIDIA, VIA and SiS, have already prepared these solutions. Let’s talk a bit more about them now.

NVIDIA deserves being called the leader of the Socket A chipsets market today. This company was the first one to launch a Socket A chipset supporting 400MHz bus. You are already familiar with this solution: it is the good old nForce2. However, the company had to introduce a new chipset revision to ensure fully-fledged support of the new Barton processors with 400MHz bus. This new nForce2 revision boasts better stability when working with faster FSB. The revision is marked as C1, and has been shipping to the mainboard manufacturers for quite a while already that is why most today’s nForce2 based mainboards will have no problems working with processors featuring 400MHz bus.

To avoid confusion, NVIDIIA will mark all solutions supporting 400MHz bus as nForce2 Ultra 400, although this is exactly the same nForce2 Rev. C1. As a result, all the features of the new chipset remain the same as by nForce2, with that only difference that they will also include 400MHz bus and dual-channel DDR400 SDRAM support.

Moreover, NVIDIA will also be offering a single-channel nForce3 Ultra 400, which will be called simply nForce2 400. This chipset will be targeted for the budget market and will allow designing mainboards starting at $70.

Both these chipsets, nForce2 Ultra 400 and nForce2 400, will be equipped with the old MCP-T and MCP South Bridges.

SiS Company also didn’t waste its time. Today this company is already shipping in mass their new SiS748 chipset supporting Socket A processors with 400MHz bus. SiS748 is an updated SiS746FX supporting single-channel DDR333/DDR400 SDRAM, Socket A CPUs with 400MHz bus and AGP 8x.

And VIA is losing the market very rapidly. Not so long ago this company was the flagman of the chipset industry, while today they are lagging behind. VIA is going to introduce its chipset solution for CPUs with 400MHz bus only in June. This newcomer will be none other but an improved version of the failed KT400A, which will be called KT600. VIA KT600 will be a single-channel chipset supporting DDR400 and AGP 8x, however, it will have one peculiarity. The new VIA core logic set will be equipped with the VIA VT8237 South Bridge, which means that it will be the only Socket A chipset with SerialATA support.

This way, AMD Athlon XP with 400MHz bus will be supported by three chipsets targeted for various price categories, which means that very soon we will also see slower processor models with 400MHz bus.

Summing up everything we have just told you, we made a table with the specifications of all Socket A chipsets supporting 400MHz bus:

Overclocking

Athlon XP 3200+ overclocking is a purely applied task. We will be able to evaluate how big the potential of the top processor model in the family is. Of course, you shouldn’t expect much from the newcomer, because AMD definitely wouldn’t miss the opportunity to launch a Barton based CPU working at higher core frequency, if this were possible. And since Athlon XP 3200+ is the last processor in this family, we expect it to be poorly overclockable.

But enough talking, let’s do something now. We overclocked our today’s hero on ABIT NF7 rev. 2.0 mainboard (see our ABIT NF7 2.0 Mainboard Review for more details). The cooling solution used was quite ordinary: Ajigo MF035-032 recommended by AMD for use with Athlon XP 3200+ processors. We overclocked our processor in the following way. Since the systems built with Athlon XP can work unstably in case the bus frequency exceeds 400MHz,  we first of all tried to set the maximum possible clock frequency multiplier (Athlon XP 3200+, just like other AMD processors, has unlocked multiplier). And only after that we attempted to speed up the bus even more.

The maximum multiplier we managed to set successfully was 12x. This is a good result keeping in mind that the nominal multiplier of Athlon XP 3200+ is 11x. In other words, since the FSB frequency for the tested processor was 200MHz, we managed to make it another 20MHz higher this way. However, it turned out that the system stability was no longer high enough, therefore, we had to regain it by raising the processor Vcore from the nominal 1.65V to 1.75V.

Then we started raising the FSB frequency. Here the results were not that impressive, and as soon as the FSB reached 204MHz, the system froze. However, at the FSB equal to 203MHz the system started up and worked quite OK. Only CPU-hungry applications appeared a problem for our system. Luckily, I managed to increase the Vcore by another bit (up to 1.8V), so that the problems were eliminated completely.

And here is the result: Athlon XP 3200+ working at the nominal 2.2GHz reached the top of 2432MHz:

In fact this result can hardly be called impressive. However, it gives us hope that just in case AMD will be able to announce one more Athlon XP working at, say, 2.3GHz.

Prices and Availability

There have never been any problems with the availability of top Athlon XP (Barton) models. These CPUs started selling immediately after the actual announcement. The same thing should happen this time also: Athlon XP 3200+ starts selling today.

The price of the new solutions is more interesting to us, in fact. If you take a look at the prices set by AMD for their Athlon XP 3200+, you will understand what the positioning of the new solution will be against the competitor’s background. The table below allows you to compare the today’s prices of the Athlon XP processors with those of Intel Pentium 4:

Intel Pentium 4 3.2*	$637
AMD Athlon XP 3200+	$464
Intel Pentium 4 3.0	$417
Intel Pentium 4 3.06	$401
AMD Athlon XP 3000+	$325
Intel Pentium 4 2.8C*	$278
Intel Pentium 4 2.8	$262
AMD Athlon XP 2800+	$225
Intel Pentium 4 2.6*	$218
Intel Pentium 4 2.66	$193
AMD Athlon XP 2700+	$180
Intel Pentium 4 2.4C*	$178
Intel Pentium 4 2.4	$163
AMD Athlon XP 2600+	$151
AMD Athlon XP 2500+	$124

* - CPUs to come out in the nearest future.

Well, this is a very interesting situation. After the launch of Athlon XP 3000+, AMD positioned it as an alternative to Pentium 4 3.06GHz. Now the company’s ambitions have grows much smaller. Athlon XP 3000+ now costs much less than Pentium 4 3.06GHz, and the top Athlon XP 3200+ model is just a little bit more expensive than Pentium 4 3.0GHz, yielding about $200 to the upcoming Pentium 4 3.2GHz due a little later.

Testbed and Methods

We tested the new Athlon XP 3200+ processor with only one widely spread platform for processors with 400MHz bus, actually. It was based on NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. We used ABIT NF7 Rev. 2.0 mainboard and a pair of high-speed DDR400 Corsair CMX256A-3200LL memory modules, which allow setting the memory timings to 2-2-2-5 even when working at 400MHz.

As a rival for this test system we selected Pentium 4 3.0GHz with 800MHz system bus. This system was based on the recently announce i875. We used ASUS P4C800 Deluxe mainboard and dual-channel DDR400 SDRAM.

 Besides, we have also included into our comparison the performance results shown by Pentium 4 3.06GHz with 533MHz system bus and Athlon XP 3000+.

And in addition we will also include the result shown the Athlon XP (Barton) overclocked to 2.4GHz (12x200MHz).

So, here are our tesbeds:

Notes:

• DDR333 SDRAM timings (in systems with Athlon XP 3000+ with 333MHz bus and Pentium 4 3.06GHz): 2-2-2-5;
• DDR400 SDRAM timings in Athlon XP system: 2-2-2-5, in Pentium 4 system: 2-2-2-6. The peculiarities of the memory controller in i875 chipset require less aggressive timings.
• The tests were run in MS Windows XP SP1.

Performance

We tested the processors performance in typical office applications (MS Word, Excel, etc.) with the help of Business Winstone 2002 test set. Here the leadership traditionally belongs to Athlon XP processors. The use of faster 400MHz bus in the top Athlon XP model did increase its performance even more, which made it impossible for Pentium 4 with 800MHz bus to catch up with the fastest Athlon XP models.

In the complex Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2003 measuring the testbeds performance in applications processing digital content, the situation is a little different. Not only the new Athlon XP 3200+ with 400MHz bus proves unable to reach Pentium 4 processor, but even the CPU overclocked to 2.4GHz fails to do it. Intel’s NetBurst architecture shows its best here.

During mp3 encoding faster bus of the Athlon XP processor doesn’t matter at all. This is a purely computational task, which doesn’t require higher bandwidth of the bus between the CPU and the memory. Pentium 4 CPU manages to get ahead here due to three factors: SSE2 instructions support, twice higher ALU frequency relative to the CPU frequency and Hyper-Threading technology, which is so successfully used by LAME codec.

To speed up the processing of algorithms used in a popular WinRAR archiving utility, the higher processor bus bandwidth appears very much needed. As a result, the performance difference between Athlon XP 3000+ and the new Athlon XP 3200+ grows to 12%! As for the performance of the overclocked to 2.4GHz Athlon XP processor, it outpaces Athlon XP 2.2GHz not that greatly. But even after overclocking Barton still falls behind Pentium 4 with fast 800MHz bus.

During video encoding into MPEG-4 format, Pentium 4 processors are usually the best. The introduction of faster 400MHz doesn’t change the situation for Athlon XP. Overclocking Athlon XP to 2.4GHz also doesn’t improve the situation. SSE2 instructions, Hyper-Threading technology and NetBurst architecture designed to work fast with streaming data help Pentium 4 to show its best here.

The situation is similar during data encoding with the help of Windows Media Encoder9, although in this case the faster 400MHz bus of the new Athlon XP has some positive effect on the performance. However, Intel processors do not feel like leaving the upper part of the diagram.

Now let’s check how well the new Athlon XP 3200+ processor will run in 3D games.

The launching of Pentium 4 processor with 800MHz bus took the leadership away from Athlon XP in this benchmark. However, the new Athlon XP 3200+ with 400MHz bus regains the laurels. The top Pentium 4 processor has been defeated.

In 3DMark03 the situation is just the opposite: the leading position here is occupied by Pentium 4 3.0GHz. Even overclocking doesn’t help Athlon XP.

CPU score provided by this benchmark offers us a slightly different picture. Although Pentium 4 3.0GHz with 800MHz bus is ahead of the new Athlon XP 3200+, it still fails to beat the CPU working at 2.4GHz.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein game is even more Intel-friendly. The 800MHz bus of the new Pentium 4 3.0GHz speeded it up so greatly, that even an overclocked to 2.4GHz Athlon XP processor can’t catch up with the rival any more.

However, in Unreal Tournament 2003 the leadership belongs to AMD processors. The faster 400MHz bus only strengthens their positions in this game.

Unreal Tournament 2003 is far not the only game where AMD processors are the best.

Now let’s check the performance of the new Athlon XP 3200+ during rendering:

Well, there is nothing to be surprised with. The CPU computational capacity is of primary importance during rendering. Therefore, CPUs with higher core clock defeat those working at lower frequencies no matter how fast their bus is. As for Pentium 4, it owes its extremely high performance to Hyper-Threading technology support, which sometimes allows increasing the processor performance in multi-threaded applications due to more efficient CPU utilization.

We can say absolutely the same thing about the rendering speed in Lightwave 7.5. However, Athlon XP overclocked to 2.4GHz rendered Sunset scene considerably faster than the today’s Pentium 4 processors.

It is a hard task for Athlon XP to compete with Pentium 4 capable of processing two data streams at a time. Unfortunately, AMD doesn’t have the facility to develop and apply technologies similar to Intel’s Hyper-Threading.

How well will the new Barton with 400MHz bus perform in professional OpenGL applications? The answer will be given by SPECviewprf 7.1 test:

Athlon XP performed very fast in all tests of this package.  The explanation is very simple: Athlon XP is beyond any competition in applications requiring fast FPU.

In conclusion the results of the synthetic PCMark2002 test:

Conclusion

AMD once again managed to speed up its processors without any significant core frequency increase. This time the company resorted to the trick that has already stood all tests of time: they increased the bus frequency from 333MHz to 400MHz. As you can see, it worked. The new Athlon XP 3200+ looks pretty competitive against the background of the new Pentium 4 3.0GHz with 800MHz bus.

The freshly launched Pentium 4 3.0GHz with 800MHz bus used to outperform Athlon XP in most tests, however, the announcement of the new Athlon XP 3200+ leveled out the chances. Athlon XP 3200+ is the fastest CPU for games, business applications and professional OpenGL tasks, while Pentium 4 retains the leadership in digital content creation applications, streaming data processing tasks and 3D rendering.

Nevertheless, it looks as if the upcoming announcement of the new Pentium 4 3.2GHz in June could turn the scale in Intel’s favor again, unless AMD introduces faster CPUs. And after that we will be waiting for the new competition round between AMD Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 Prescott.