As we look toward the introductions on September 23rd, some things are starting to become clearer about Athlon64. Announcements from AMD and word-of-mouth all point to the performance of Athlon64 and Opteron being very close if not identical. We also are hearing rumors from the Inquirer and elsewhere that the 754-pin Athlon64 will likely be introduced initially at 2.0GHz, with a revised (and more realistic) Performance Rating that will place it somewhere around 3200+, which is the current highest PR of the top Barton. However, no one has really done much in answering how the Athlon64 will perform compared to current Athlon and Pentium 4 CPUs. While the delay of Microsoft’s 64-bit Windows XP still will not allow us to test 64-bit Athlon64 performance, we do have the tools at hand to give a good idea of what to expect from 32-bit Athlon64 performance when it is introduced in the next few weeks.
When Anand Shimpi first tested Opteron in April, there were only server-based boards available for testing. The single-CPU nVidia nForce3, which has real AGP 8X and Enthusiast-level overclocking options, would not be released for a couple of months. With nForce3 for Opteron now available in the market, and the expectation of a 2.0GHz Athlon64 introduction, we went back to our nVidia nForce3 reference board with an Opteron capable of running 200FSB to see where Athlon64 might land.
With the AGP/PCI lock and FSB overclocking of the nForce3, we were able to reach a stable 2.0Ghz (222x9) at default voltage with our 1.8 Opteron, even though we were running 2GB (512MBx4) of Dual-Channel ECC memory. With full support of AGP 8X, we were also able to use our standard ATI Radeon 9800 PRO for benchmarking.
With the nForce 3 running Opteron at 2.0Ghz with a Radeon 9800 PRO, we had the platform to give our readers a decent preview of Athlon64 performance. So how will Athlon64 likely compare to the best Pentium 4 CPU’s and current Barton processors?
When Anand Shimpi first tested Opteron in April, there were only server-based boards available for testing. The single-CPU nVidia nForce3, which has real AGP 8X and Enthusiast-level overclocking options, would not be released for a couple of months. With nForce3 for Opteron now available in the market, and the expectation of a 2.0GHz Athlon64 introduction, we went back to our nVidia nForce3 reference board with an Opteron capable of running 200FSB to see where Athlon64 might land.
With the AGP/PCI lock and FSB overclocking of the nForce3, we were able to reach a stable 2.0Ghz (222x9) at default voltage with our 1.8 Opteron, even though we were running 2GB (512MBx4) of Dual-Channel ECC memory. With full support of AGP 8X, we were also able to use our standard ATI Radeon 9800 PRO for benchmarking.
With the nForce 3 running Opteron at 2.0Ghz with a Radeon 9800 PRO, we had the platform to give our readers a decent preview of Athlon64 performance. So how will Athlon64 likely compare to the best Pentium 4 CPU’s and current Barton processors?
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Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
I thought that the Athlon64 did not have the integrated memory controller. That's the big difference between the Opteron and the Atlon64, in single processor quantities.Wesley Fink - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
The latest runors at the Inquirer and Xbit Labs have the Athlon64 FX launching at 2.2GHz, which seems to be the rumor consensus :-) I have an Asus SK8N board I am testing now with an Opteron, and it supports both ECC and non-ECC memory - but it appears it MUST be fed Registered memory. This means regular unbuffered memory will not likely work on the Opteron based CPU's.Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Interesting. And isnt the Athlon64 FX supposed to be running at 2.3 ghz? Add in support for Non ECC memory (which is slower) and color me interested.And here I was all set on buying a new 3.0ghz P4 system in a couple of weeks... <sigh>
WheelsCSM - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Looks pretty good, how much are these things supposed to cost?sandorski - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Sounds good! Hopefully the Athlon 64 *will* perform in a similar manner.Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Oh, nevermind. Disregard #3. I understand what you're saying now.Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
"Our reference board includes full support for Dual-Channel DDR ECC memory, and the Athlon64 version will also support non-ECC memory"When it says "Athlon64" here is it referring to Athlon64 FX (Socket 940)? I thought that Athlon64 FX is basically an Opteron. And Opteron requires registered DIMMs with ECC.
Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Awesome preview Wes, i can't wait to get one of these bad boys to play with after the 23rd, hopefully in the prommie!!keep up the good work.
Tony
(bigtoe)
AgaBooga - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
I wonder when Intel will respond to these articles on Athlon 64 with some Prescott previews