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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HardwareD00d - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Fantastic article, obviously very well thought out.I would have liked to see a comparison between the 4000+ and the "real" FX-53 to really back up your rebadging theory (yeah I know speed+cache+memory width are equal between the two, but just to make sure AMD isn't pulling some magic out of there butt somewhere else).
Marsumane - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Yes, thanks for the XP comparison. I find it interesting how its not performing as well as it used to in games. (doom 3, farcry, cs:s)Also, your ut2k4 benches seem off. How is doom 3 pulling 50% more frames at the same res? Maybe your ut is at 16x12? I pull similar frames on ut w/ my 9800p oced.
ksherman - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
I like the ending... It sounds mysterious!alexruiz - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
I will suggest again to include some Ulead Video Studio 8.0 benchmarks for video encoding. Ulead is by far the fastest consumer grade video editor / renderer, it is the most complete and one of the most popular. In fact, it is almost 50% faster than Pinnacle 9, and almost 100% faster than videowave.Roxio has really been working with Intel as all previous version of video wave ran better on AMD hardware. As reference, results video wave 6 or 7 would be interesting. Newer doesn't always mean better, as you can see from Adobe Premiere. Version 7.0 is quite slower than 6.5 doing the exact same thing in the same platform.
For DivX encoding, a run with virtualdub/virtualdubmod or DVD2AVI would be nice, as they are very fast and extensively used.
Just some comments
Alex
Araemo - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Thank you thank you thank you for including an Athlon XP.This allows me to better judge where my current Barton 2.4 Ghz sits. ;P So I know when an upgrade to the next cheap overclocker will give a good enough performance boost to be worth the money.
stephenbrooks - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Here's an idea to play with: how about some 2D scatter plots of Performance/£ and Performance/Watt? Obviously not on everything - that would clutter it - but perhaps on one or two key things it'd be nice to see.Zar0n - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
EDIT #22 There is no 3400+ for SK 939 only 3500+Zar0n - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Nice article BUT:You should make C&C power consumption and temperature
Also some OC tests.
The Battle for Value is not correct:
1º WHAT about price of DDR1 VS DDR2?!
2º MB for INTEL are more expensive, ~40€ is a great difference in a MB price.
3º 0.09 AMD are just introduced so they are going to come down, not much but they are.
In order to be fair you should compare with AMD 3400+
AMD as a clear winner here.
mczak - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
power consumption at idle - is this with or without cool 'n' quiet (I suspect without)?Uff - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
I have to agree with #18 - it's not worth paying more than twice the price of a 3400+ just to get 3800+ on 939 platform.Many say 'OH! But s939 is more upgradable!', but if you think about it, by the time you upgrade next there are very likely going to be new motherboards available aswell and you end up upgrading that anyway. Not to mention motherboards cost virtually nothing compared to cpus.