X-bit labs

Started by: Tunde Adeolu | Date 06/01/04

Comments: 47 | Last Comment:  11/30/07

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1. Only God can tell the headache that Intel will be having right now with these new destroyers in 939 and 754 sockets. Now the competition can commence since nothing new again is coming from intel.

2. If only AMD improved the efficiency of SSE and SSE2 instructions implementation ...sigh

3. AMD gonna update their sse2 and add sse3 in 90nm?

4. I think it's not a good idea testing CPU with games at 1024x768 since lower resolutions like 640x480 or even lower in games detail's to provide a better comparison between the cpu’s, because really, far cry 65.74 fps vs 68.75 I don’t see the point.
Try the lowest possible quality setting and test it, could be interesting.

5. I don't think sites should test at 640x480 because no one plays games at those resolutions so the tests are pretty useless. There are tons of people use play games at 1078x768 so it makes to test at that resolution to give a real-world performance comparison.

Now that being said: If a site is going to use 1024x768, they must have the latest and greatest graphics card to test the system with.

Why not test both? Sounds logical to me anyways.

6. Your evaluations of the various new AMD64 chips are interesting, but do not include tests in 64 bit mode.
Please perform comparisons using 32 bit and 64 bit Linux. As a rudimentary example, compile a program that counts from 0 to 2^64-1 in the two environments and compare the results of running these programs.
Similarily repeatedly read from a a hard drive to establish the difference (if any) there is between these two platforms.
Try also compiling Lame for the two platforms and compare the results in mp3 encoding.
The existence of a 64 bit capable operating system and applications is a main reason why one might desire to purchase the new AMD64 range.

Thanks
Richard

7. What about stability and compatibility with the Atlhon 64 family? I know, and possibly everyone else, that the older Athlon XP sucked; every friend I have with an Atlhon XP has serious problems, like restarts every time the cpu got high load in graphic programs, incompatibility with this and that game, incompatibility with graphic cards etc. That's why I purchased a Pentium IV 2.8 and not a cheaper Athlon. So, what about Athlon 64?

"incompatibility with this and that game" maybe your thinking of an Apple system running PC software? (and I don't suppose you could list these games?)
I think the only problem your friends have is that they spent less money than you... too late now...

Some facts please.

I must say that myfriens have the problems with Athlon XP 1700+ & 2000+ based on non-nforce chipsets and ATI graphic cards, my brother has problem with Nvidia card. One friend with an 2800+ & nforce2 has no problems (in games - he uses no programs), as he says. So, maybe the problems are caused from the chipset. What the others you say?

We have several servers and PCs with Athlon CPUs, so my experience is first hand. We've never had any of the incompatibility and instability problems Athlon chips despite the fact out tasks are CPU intensive.

I have an XP 2500+ now (OC'd) with an ATI card and have used systems with XP 1600+ and 1700+ in the past (with nVidia cards) and have never experienced any problems with stability. Out of people I know, more have instability problems with P4 chips, so I guess it must depend on other factors.

I have a crap ECS K7S5A, a crap AMD XP2400+ and a CRAP Ati 9500 and I didn't have nothing of those incompatibilities you are saying (in fact that doesn't exist anymore).
“…incompatibility with this and that game, incompatibility with graphic cards etc.”, what a joke….
In terms of STABILITY no problem under XP and ME, BUT since Catalyst 3.6 (under XP or ME) some games lookup (under D3D only) and I don't know why, but maybe is nothing to do with AMD but ATI Catalyst drivers, I think.

Your friends should buy better PSU's and decent memory. These are two mistakes a lot of people make when building an athlon XP system (even some Intel systems). For instance, I only use Crucial, Kingston or Corsair in systems I build for customers. I also only sell OVERKILL power supplies. As a reseller/sys Int I don't want them coming back (#1) and I build a pc for the customer with the thinking that they will probably add a drive or more powerful vid card later. Explaining the need to spend say, an extra $20-30 on that PSU now to avoid problems in the future, and gain total stability for now is easy and most go for it without hesitation. My guess is your friends have cheapo (generic) PSU's and probably no name brand memory. No 300w is not enough :) Go higher. Instant reboots are usually PSU related (75% of the time) (volts to cpu drop/fluctuate and cause reboots/lockups etc), or memory thats not quite compatible (25% or so of time). Hope this helps, tell them buy a new PSU and problems will probably be solved. Try enermax 375 ($60 incl ship) or 465 ($70 incl ship). Problem solved.

8. I would have liked to have seen a comparison that included the S939 FX-53. Hopefully, one is on the way.

More extensive comparison coming soon...
More CPUs, more tests

9. I've only witnessed a minor bug when compiling with Borland C++ 6.0 and Athlon64...It causes the compiled app to crash, but can be fixed by writing the apps in a slightly different way. (Its fine for other CPUs including Athlon XP and Duron).

Like to see more Engineering apps, as my tutor doesn't believe me that Athlon64/FX/Opteron craps on Intel's P4 and Xeons in Engineering apps. (The raw number crunching without SSE2 or HT support).

10. well, i have a p3 650mhz and i only can dream with this athol

dollar is 3 reais

see ya

11. Hey you poofs

12. AMD seems to have the best gaming chip right now. Kinda makes you wonder who's steering the boat for AMD. AMD has the chips to really gain market share on Intel and doesn't seem to know what to do, or how to do it.

People usually buy within their comfort zone. Give them any reason to, they will allways buy mainstream. People will buy Intel chips over AMD because AMD has confused everyone with two sockets, and the A64 3800.

I've read that the 3800 is a FX-53 with half of the 1mb cache disabled/defective. Not sure if thats true or not. Maybe they just added to 3800 to get rid of bad FX chips. That would explain the exisitance of the 3800.

I was ready to build a A64 3400 but now I not sure if I should put any cash into a S940. Upgrade after that would be one step, game over, try again. I'll spend more cash that the average person to build a Gamer, but I can't afford to throw money away either.

13. poster 22:
".. Like to see more Engineering apps, as my tutor doesn't believe me that Athlon64/FX/Opteron craps on Intel's P4 and Xeons in Engineering apps. (The raw number crunching without SSE2 or HT support)."

I absolutely agree. You can see this from this article's Mathematica as well as compiling benchmark (which can be indicative of how well an architecture handles branchy code -- used in a lot of academic apps like AI). In fact, just look at any SiSoft Sandra benchmark for the P4 and notice the NON-sse2 performance figures i.e. x87 floating point and they're absolutely terrible.

All said, this is why AMD seems more popular among the HPC and linux/unix crowd where cross platform code takes precedence over cpu specific optmizations. (intel's compiler can boost speed by 30% by doing scary optimizations like loop unrolling with sse2, and shifting a whole lotta instructions around to fit the netburst architecture and prevent stalling with that long pipeline, but the result is a binary that won't run on anything else of course)

It's ironic but fortunate that they're finally going back to the P3 based Pentium M for the future desktop. Also of note, is that Itanium 2 is like an opteron on steriods (ignoring the difference in ISA for a moment) Ace's hardware had a benchmark showing an Itainum 2 at just 1Ghz running PovRay ran twice as fast as a 2Ghz Opteron which in turn ran about 50% than a 3Ghz Xeon. Oh, and nominal implementations of Itaniums have just an 8 stage pipeline :)

14. I don't likt the sound of an athlon 64 been as hot as a prescot, I was thinking if upgrading in the next 2 years when soccet a is trully dead. Lol.
For games Its the graphics card which matters once your proccesors over 1ghz. For a little test I crippled the speed of my 2800+ by underclcoking it to 700mhz, I have a 9800xt and farcry on highest detail settings was still playable. Proof that its the gpu that takes the load!!

15. I understand intel is releasing 64 bit cpu's supposedly mainly for workstations, maybe this is amd's competition?

16. Xbit Labs always have the best review articles. Thanks.

One thing lacking in all the articles I read ... Processing power per unit of cost. Many of us are shopping by how much power can I buy. If a review has an XP 3200+ and a P4 3.2 included give us some cost/performance data. What I really think would serve consumers best would be some concluding graph of processing power with cost facter into it. How many benchmark units does a $1 buy me with this CPU vs. another CPU.

Thanks for the reviews, Skip

17. AMD64 3500 Nice~~~

18. Could you update this list to show all AMD Athlon 64 that have 939 socket

19. i want a good picture of the item (amd athlon 3500+64 bit socket 939) and the price please..... thanks

20. HCL

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