Gaming and Media Encoding Performance
One of the biggest questions is how the $430 3400+ compares to the $750 Athlon64 FX51 in gaming. With both running at the same speed and the same 1Mb of cache, we can finally see what impact the different memory architectures have on performance. The only real difference in the 3400+ and the FX51 is, after all, the Dual-Channel Registered memory used in the FX51 versus the Single-Channel used for the 3400+. While the FX51 is still faster, the real difference between the 2 chips is next to nothing in X2 and Unreal Tournament Flyby. The Dual-Channel memory does make a larger difference in Media Encoding, Halo, and UT Botmatch. It is fair to say that at about 60% of the price of the FX51, the 3400+ performs very well indeed, coming very close in many gaming benchmarks.
It is interesting that all of the Athlon64 chips outperform the Intel Pentium 4 EE in gaming, except for the comparable performance in the older Quake 3. This again demonstrates the superiority of the A64 as a gaming platform. The one area where Intel dominates is Media Encoding, where the 3.2EE, 3.2 and even the 3.0 lead all Athlon64 family chips. While the Dual-Channel FX51 does compare much better to Intel in Media Encoding, the Intel P4 family is still the top choice for Media Encoding. Also, don't overlook the fact that the 3400+, in particular, and the Socket 754 A64's, in general, have made giant strides in Media Encoding performance compared to the older Athlon XP processors.
The Pentium 4EE does perform much better in gaming than the lower-priced 3.2 and 3.0, and the gap is much smaller when the Athlon64 is compared to the P4EE. However, unless your budget can handle $1000 for the CPU, the Athlon64 is your best choice for a gaming rig. In the Athlon64 family, the FX51 is the best performing processor in gaming, but it is also a pricey $750. The 3400+ provides most of the same gaming performance for about $430.
As we have seen in other recent GunMetal 2 tests, the benchmark seems to be video-card bound and it tells us very little about the performance differences in processors or systems. While GunMetal 2 may be useful for Video Card comparisons, it is not a good tool for processor or system performance measurements and will be dropped from future system testing.
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EglsFly - Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - link
"AMD suggested that end-users check their list of approved power supplies for the 3400+ on the AMD web site."Can someone post the link to this power supply list? I did not find it on AMD's web site.
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
Yeti Studios has been on the web at http://www.yetistudios.co.uk/ The link appears to be down right now. Zoo Digital released the original Gun Metal game with Yeti and their link to Gun Metal is working at http://www.zoodigitalpublishing.com/article.asp?id...brett1 - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
Hey I'm glad to see that gunmetal (2?) is one of those games that actually relies on the VIDEO card VPU/GPU instead of the processor. Let's hope anandtech keeps it for future video card only tests.Speaking of gunmetal 2....why is there no website dedicated to the game itself? Yetistudios.com does not exist and there are little to no references to the actual game when doing a google search.
Jeff7181 - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
#5 Please don't tell me you're saying the 9800 Pro 128 MB was a bottleneck and caused the P4 to be outperformedShinei - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
Because the difference between the 9800 Pro and XT is marginal, and if they made the GPU less powerful the benchmarks would be GPU-bound instead of CPU-bound.KillaKilla - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
Why do they have a 9800Pro 128? Wouldn't it make sense to make the CPU as much of a bottleneck as posible?CRAMITPAL - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
Nice to see a quality review of all the latest and greatest chippies without bogus memory settings and benchmarks to skew the results. As most folks probably knew the 3400+ is the most practical choice for top of the line performance on a budget. FX51 which will be replaced shortly by FX53 will raise the bar for those looking for the absolute fastest X86 system available, period. The A64 3000+ is the sweet spot for most folks and the A64 3200+ ain't bad either for only $60. more.Intel's gonna have their work cut out for them Spinning how Prescott is worth purchasing when it's slower than EE and A64 by a long shot.
KristopherKubicki - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
i play quake... on my cell phone!http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1945&p...
KristopherKubicki - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
i still play quake... :(Icewind - Monday, January 12, 2004 - link
Wow, the differences are very minumual between all these CPU's, especially the FX vs the 3400+. Makes me wonder how the newer 128bit Channel version of the A64 will do this summer when I upgrade from this 2.8@3.3ghz P4c. The extra cost overhead for the EE as well as the FX can't be justified by any means from this comparison. I guess if you got the money though.....Well done Anandtech. Though i'd love to see a BF1942 benchmark in the future, The quake 3 bench has simply gotta go. Its no longer a rellavent and viable benchmark anymore.