AMD Athlon 64 4000+ & FX-55: A Thorough Investigation
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 19, 2004 1:04 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Re-evaluating the Benefits of Socket-939
Given that pretty much the fastest processors are available on both Socket-754 and Socket-939 platforms for the Athlon 64, we have to once again look at the performance improvement brought by a 128-bit memory interface to see if Socket-939 is truly worth it from an overall performance standpoint. Understanding that the upgrade path is much brighter with Socket-939, it is still important to evaluate present-day performance benefits. So, is Socket-939 worth it from a broad standpoint? In order to find out we compared two identical processors: the Athlon 64 3800+ and the Athlon 64 3400+. Both run at the same 2.4GHz clock speed and feature the same 512KB L2 cache, the only difference is that one processor has a 128-bit memory interface while the other has a 64-bit memory interface. Let the games begin:
In our Business/General Use tests, the 128-bit memory interface of the 3800+ was responsible for an average of a 5.4% performance advantage over the Socket-754 part, only tying in one benchmark.
In our Multitasking Content Creation tests, the Socket-939 platform pulled ahead in all tests by an average of 3.2%.
In the Video Creation/Photo Editing tests, the Socket-939 platform pulled ahead, once again, in all tests by an average of 4.2%.
The Socket-939 platform pulled ahead by an average of 4.4% in four out of the 5 A/V encoding tests.
In the gaming tests, the 128-bit Socket-939 memory interface caused an average performance advantage of 6.3% across all tests.
Surprisingly enough, in the 3D Rendering tests with 3dsmax, Socket-939 offers a 5.4% performance advantage - once again, across all tests.
Finally in our Workstation tests we find the biggest supporter for Socket-939, the platform allows for an average improvement over over 17%.
From our standpoint, the recommendation for Socket-939 is clear, although rest assured that if you are on a budget you can get away with Socket-939-like performance with a Socket-754 platform in certain performance categories. Although workstation users will definitely want to spring for the 939 platforms, and with the introduction of the new 90nm Socket-939 parts, the platform should become even more affordable. It's worth going down one speed grade in order to get a Socket-939 platform in our opinion, not only for the small to reasonable performance improvements but also because of the much safer upgrade path.
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coolme - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
#85 yeah, but when comparing to Tom's Hardware review, it's totally off track... (Tom's is more believeble because there is pics of how he measured it and based on the fact that there is no way a A64 could handle 200+ watts)http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041115/pentium4...
how Tom tested it: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041115/pentium4...
eight - Monday, December 27, 2004 - link
Has anyone information about A64 performance with Premiere Pro 1.5? I assume thet A64 does beat P4, but assumption is mother of... :)euanw - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
#44Wesley,
I am very impressed by your articles. Can you inform me of the procedure you used to overclock the FX55? With the Neo2 board I am not clear on CPU vid and CPU voltage, what do they mean? When I change the multiplier to 13.5 my new PC reaches winXP and then reboots.
My setup is MSI K8N-Neo2-54G, FX-55, 2 x 512MB - OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Platinum Rev2, Nvidia Quadro FX3000, 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120 GB, Matrox RTX-100 real time video editor, Antec TrueBlue 480W ATX-12V, BenQ DVD Dual DW1610, WinXP-SP2.
euanw - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
#44Wesley,
Gioron - Sunday, October 24, 2004 - link
While I'm unsure of the exact method used in this review, I'm sure that there is no built-in power measurement devices on the motherboards and processors listed (unless its new and no one told me...) so its NOT just just a matter of installing software that can read a sensor thats already there (as in all the CPU temp monitors). This means it requires some hardware to measure the voltage and current flow to various components (or you can cheat a little and assume the voltage is constant and just measure current).Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it sounds, since isolating various components can be a problem. Its fairly easy to measure things like hard drive power useage since there is only one power connector going to it and its easy to access, so you measure the current on the 5v line and the current on the 12v line, and you're pretty much done. Things like CPUs, motherboards and graphics cards are a bit more difficult. On the newer graphics cards you can measure the power consumption from the additional molex connector, but in all likelyhood, the card will also draw a certain amount of power from the AGP slot power lines, and no one in their right mind is going to unsolder the AGP slot and raise it half an inch in an attempt to put a current sensor in line with the power leads. Thus, you need to rely on indirect means and educated guesses. You can measure the current going into the motherboard, but how much of that is going to the chipset, the CPU, the RAM and the graphics card? You can swap in a different CPU and see how it changes, but that won't give you absolute readings. You can try to remove the CPU and see what power the MB uses without one, but odds are it'll use more power when its actually interfacing with a CPU instead of beeping error codes at you.
Bottom line: There is no easy way to measure power consumption, and even dedicated hardware review sites have problems with it. Personally, I trust Anand far enough that I'm sure he didn't completely screw it up, and the numbers he has are probably close enough to the real thing. I'd forget about measuring power for myself.
xsilver - Friday, October 22, 2004 - link
Kinda late on the comments but..If anand or anybody can answer -- what is used to measure the "power consumption" software? or hardware? links? I would like to test this myselfthanks
Bakwetu - Friday, October 22, 2004 - link
Whoah, it's been a while since I checked out cpu reviews and I must say Amd has some impressive cpu:s nowadays. Even though I am budget oriented when it comes to buying hardare, I'd choose the 3400+ model before the 3200+, it's not all that much more expensive and seems to perform much bettert - Friday, October 22, 2004 - link
79uhuh.... and in a server type situation, how many raid arrays are ran off the chipset controllers? not many i would wager..
hell... u prolly have an independent fibre optic raid array :)
hardware, baby, hardware.
t.
knitecrow - Friday, October 22, 2004 - link
I always knew women were trouble when it comes to technology ;)screech - Thursday, October 21, 2004 - link
nice ones #79, 78. :)