AMD Athlon 64 4000+ & FX-55: A Thorough Investigation
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 19, 2004 1:04 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Battle for Value: Athlon 64 3200+ vs. Pentium 4 530
In a review of processors selling for close to $1,000, it's important to look at some of the more affordable CPUs to see how they stack up against each other as well. With the introduction of the first 90nm Athlon 64 parts, AMD has been able to bring the Socket-939 Athlon 64 CPUs down below $300, making for an interesting value comparison.
Using our RealTime Pricing Engine we found that for just over $200 you could either have an Athlon 64 3200+ or a Pentium 4 530 (3GHz). While this doesn't take into account motherboard cost, 925X boards and Socket-939 boards are in the same general price ranges. You can get a Socket-939 nForce3 board for $133, and you can get an ABIT 925X board for $150.
So the question becomes, based on our plethora of benchmarks, which CPU do you buy? In order to find out, we'll break down the benchmarks by category once again.
In our Business/General Use tests, the Athlon 64 3200+ won 6 benchmarks, tied in 1 and lost 3. In the 6 benchmarks that the Athlon 64 3200+ won, its average win percentage over the Pentium 4 530 was 17.6%. In the 3 that the Pentium 4 530 won, its average win percentage was also a hefty 9.6%. Overall it would seem that the Athlon 64 3200+ is the better buy for Business/General Use, although the Pentium 4 did manage to outperform it in some tests.
In our Multitasking Content Creation tests, the Athlon 64 3200+ won 2 benchmarks and the Pentium 4 530 won 3 benchmarks. In the two benchmarks the 3200+ won, it outperformed the 530 on average by 12.8%. In the three benchmarks the 530 won, it outperformed the 3200+ by 10.2%. Although the Athlon 64 won fewer benchmarks here it won by a larger overall percentage so we'll call this one a draw.
Next up is Video Creation/Editing and Photoshop performance, where the 3200+ won 2 out of the three tests by outperforming the 520 by 22.8% on average. The Pentium 4 won one test by a margin of 2.5%. The clear winner here is AMD.
Audio/Video encoding gave the Athlon 64 two wins at an average of 11.9%, while the Pentium 4 530 had 3 wins at an average of 11.3%. Given the virtually equal performance wins with a slight difference in the number of wins, we'll call this one a slight victory for Intel.
If you're a gamer, the choice is clear, the Athlon 64 3200+ won 10 out of 10 gaming benchmarks with an average performance advantage of 13.9% over the Pentium 4 530.
In our 3dsmax 3D rendering tests, the Athlon 64 won twice while the Pentium 4 one once. However the one test the Pentium 4 won in was actually a composite of 4 separate 3dsmax tests which we also included in our results. The Athlon 64 advantage in its two wins was 7.7%, while the Pentium 4 advantage in its wins was an average of 7%. With 4 actual victories over AMD's 2, our recommendation here would be leaning more strongly towards Intel but the win is definitely not clear cut.
Finally in our workstation tests, the Athlon 64 won 7 benchmarks, the Pentium 4 won one by 1% and failed one. The performance advantage here was an average of 8.4%, giving the advantage to AMD.
In the end, here's our scorecard for the Athlon 64 3200+ vs. Pentium 4 530:
Business/General Use - Athlon 64 3200+
Multitasking Content Creation - Tie
Video Creation/Editing and Photoshop - Athlon 64 3200+
Audio/Video Encoding - Pentium 4 530
Gaming - Athlon 64 3200+
3D Rendering with 3dsmax - Pentium 4 530
Workstation Performance - Athlon 64 3200+
Depending on your usage our recommendation may vary, but the best overall performer at the $200 price point appears to be the Athlon 64 3200+.
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mlittl3 - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
Hey Val, why don't you go to this link and look at a picture of your hero, Intel CEO Craig Barrett on one knee begging forgiveness for their shitty processors.http://news.com.com/Photo+Barretts+mea+culpa/2100-...
Both Intel and AMD have difficulties. But your analogy of AMD being like the cheap car companies doesn't make sense. The expensive car companies like Ferrari, Porsche, etc. sell the best cars but are very small companies because not many can afford them. AMD is like these companies now because they sell the processors for a lot of money because they are really good. Just not everyone can afford them.
But AMD is good for cheap processors too. Please find one review site that shows any Celeron doing better than a Sempron 3100+. Just one site. I want only to see you post that link in your next posting. Nothing else please because every thing you say is wrong and I'm sure Intel fanboys are telling you to stop making them look bad.
Gnoad - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
Eh, let him have his celerons, Intel will need the fan base soon to stay in business come 2005...Rhl - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
First off, Val, you're ignorant. You shouldn't speak on subjects where you are grieviously misinformed, it makes your intelligence quotient seem very low.1. You think Celerons are fast? I'm sorry, what hole have you been living in? A 1.7 ghz Celeron is SLOW, and far outpaced by an Athlon 1.7 ghz. Almost by 2x as much.
2. AMD doesn't design their own processors? May I ask who does then? INTEL? LOL. Sorry, but no, AMD does design all of their own CPU's.
3. They don't care or support consumers/developers etc? OF COURSE THEY DO, AMD's track record of supporting "the little guys" (independent shops, consumers etc) is FAR better than Intel, who doesn't care much at all for the "little guys". What you have stated is just plain WRONG.
4. AMD is alot cheaper than Intel, and is ALOT better as well. They beat Intel in real world benchmarks 9 times out of 10. You think because they're cheaper they're worse? How old are you? You need to do some research, kid.
5. You're right, nobody expects AMD to be as good as Intel... BECAUSE THEY'RE BETTER. AMD is flatout kicking Intel's ass, and has been since the original Athlon was released.
I think, val, that your brain is too "cold down", as you say, and it's not working as well as it should. Go research AMD vs Intel, and check out the realworld benchmarks. If that doesn't change your mind, go buy a Dell, you silly ignorant little fool.
screech - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
#64: celeron=too fast? seems like you haven't owned a celeron......anyway, why pay more for a crappy celeron when AMD can offer more performance for less money? (I am talking about the older celerons, ie 1.7, celeronD isn't that bad although sempron 3100 still wipes the floor with it).AMD only copies intel? where did intel's EMT64 (or whatever its called) come from? realistically both copy each other, although it looks like intel should have done more copying of a shorter pipeline a la AMD, given that the prescott seems to have been a failure. (no 4 ghz).
AMD is cheap, doesn't care for quality? Ladies and gentlemen, seems like Kanavit from THG has decided to start trolling around here...I heard him say that exact same thing a while back over there. anyway, this is such BS that it is hilarious. What kind of flawed logic says that better performance=cheap processors? haha. :D
anti intel BS based on fool snthetic benchmarks? LMAO. I agree that many synthetics are dumb, because often they do not reflect real performance in applications (intel high clocks often win the synthetics but then AMD's processors often win real world benchies), but AMD owns intel in jthe majority of benchmarks. I suppose you consider AMD winning (except for a tie or 2) EVERY gaming benchmark, an "if than" or synthetic? UT2004 is theoretical? it doesnt exist?
on another note, good job discrediting the only benchmarks that intel usually wins--synthetics.
I hope you wake up and smell the coffee.
Gnoad - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
haha, its kinda funny watching someone defend their opinion to the bitter end even though its blatantly wrong and totally misinformed. No offense val, but seriously, you got a lot of reading to do to catch up with the current realities in the CPU world.val - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
#63: i am not ignorant fool and try to control your self a bit.1,7 celeron is pretty old, 3 years or more, but i am sure that for many tasks even this is fast too much. I am sure that if you feel that the mentioned celeron was slow, it was because you was playing on it (what it was not supposed to be for) or rest of system was bad designed (HDD, memory,...)
#61: now i am happy that AMD is here, same as i am happy that there is cheap cars to buy, competing is good for all. i call for even more competitors to drop prices to real level (as in mainboards they are), same for GCs.
What i am trying to tell you, that AMD is only manufacturing what somebody else designs, they dont care and dont support products and developers, dont care for chipsets quality, certificates, nothing. This leads to that overall quality of AMD platform is far from what you can get with similar price based on Intel.
So cold down, AMD is cheap, is supposed to be cheap, nobody expects to be as good as intel with all their background. Stop that anti intel BS which is based on fool synthetic benchmarks and theoretical "if than" visions.
michaelpatrick33 - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
The power consumption graph is wrong because it shows the AMD 3000+ and 3200+ as having dual channel but the power usage shows the same as the 130nm chips. AMD only makes the 3000+ and 3200+ for 939 on 90nm I thought so unless the 90nm 3000+ and 3200+ runs with more power than the faster 3500+ 90nm the graph needs to be changed. Just a stickler sorry.AtaStrumf - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
Vai you need to pull you head out of your ass and smell the air. WTF are you talking about??? Sure AMD has had their share of troubles (who hasn't, Intel certainly has), but saying what your're saying just makes me think you're an ignorant fool.It's exacly that kind of thinking that makes people buy Celerons (I mean it's Intel right, so it can't be bad), and they I have to deal with 1,7 GHz piece of crap like I did yesterday for example. God that is SLOOOOOOOOOW!
mlittl3 - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
#49, #50, #52, #54, #55, #60 (Val)Do you think AMD should go out of business and that Intel should be the only company out there? I am guessing you are from another country so you probably also hate (never seen) an Apple. Do you think no one should choose apple? Do you wish that apple should go out of business? What about Via and Transmeta processors (C3 and Crusoe)? Do you hate those companies too and wish them out of business? Do you think their processors suck?
You talk about choice in your #54 post (I'm assuming you don't know what choice means) yet you want everyone to choose Intel because you don't know how to build a pc properly. If you base your decision not to buy AMD because you've had troubles in the past and you are assumming that everyone will have troubles, then how did AMD make ~$1.25 billion in revenue last quarter? Did they make that money selling lemonade?
Just because a company doesn't have a large presence in whatever country you are from doesn't make them inferior products. I don't know if you have heard the statement that competition drives progress. If AMD, VIA, Transmeta, Apple, IBM, etc. etc. did not exist because Val can't get an AMD system running and demands everyone use Intel, then what motivation does Intel have to bring good products to market? The 1 GHz race is what got Intel to improve its processors and maybe even release the Pentium 4. The addition of 64-bits to AMD and Intel processors got software and hardware companies to start optimizing their products for the new tech. Hell, now with Dual-core being pushed by both companies, multi-threaded apps (and hopefully this will include games) will be developed by software companies as well.
If we had just Intel which I'm assuming you pray was the case everyday, then we would have non-64bit, ~2 Ghz, non-dualcore, non-HT, pentium 3's right now.
You must live under a rock and think AMD is still the company it was back in the early 1990's. Both Intel and AMD are necessary in the market and both of their processors and other products are used by a large number of people. More people use Intel right now and AMD has the right to try and get more people to use them and they are.
What exactly are you trying to tell us?
val - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
58: thank you for information, i use Kingston or infineon on rated values which are properly detected over SPD. Maybe not on mainboards for AMD, i dont know. PSU i use Intel or Enermax with appropriate power. In my HTPC i have some noname, but it runs with no problem.