Affordable Dual Core from AMD: Athlon 64 X2 3800+
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 1, 2005 9:36 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
There's not much to say here other than that the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is the clear choice for any user at this price point. What you give up in single threaded performance is more than made up for by the improvements in multitasking and multithreaded application performance.Bit by bit, AMD is eating away at any possible recommendation that we'd have for the Pentium D. While the Pentium D 820 is still our recommendation at the sub-$300 mark, if your budget can handle it, we'd strongly recommend going for the Athlon 64 X2 3800+.
As for overclocking, we had no problems reaching 2.46GHz with our Athlon 64 3800+ sample using standard air cooling. The overclocking wasn't as impressive as what we saw with the Toledo based Athlon 64 4200+, but we will save a final conclusion on overclocking until we get more Manchester based processors in house.
We really didn't want to see AMD become a more expensive CPU manufacturer, and with the X2 3800+, we finally have a more sensibly priced dual core option. The choice is clear - the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is better in every way than the Pentium D 830. For Intel's sake in the enthusiast community, Conroe had better be very competitive next year - because ever since Prescott, the Pentium 4 has been an utter disappointment.
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masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
OMG OMG! CONSPIRACY! INTEL IS PAYING OFF TOMS!Staples - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
Seems video games are only benifiting from raw clock speed. The 2.4 single core A64 outperforms the X2 3800 every step of the way. I will be getting one when there is an X2 2.4GHz that isn't $1000.DigitalDivine - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
man, i wish amd would make a 2Ghz 256K (512k total) dual core proc.i mean, think about it.... l2 cache sizes for the athlon doesn't really dent performance (as seen in sempron's performance); it's cheaper for amd to produce and more economical to run/ power.
NullSubroutine - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
I dont know if it was includedin the AMD single vs Dual core comparsion, but I would have liked to have seen comparison of 3000+ (newcastle 2.0ghz, 512k cache...hmm i guess thats 754, what they got thats similar on 939, is that the 3200 they talked about?) vs the new 3800 x2, I could go look at old benchmarks, however sometimes they arent similar enough systesm (sometimes diffrent video, hd, benchmark settings).Hacp - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
Intel's next move should be to discount the 820 to 200 and the 830 to 275. That way, it can still stay competative with AMD in terms of Price/performance.Zebo - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
"The victory is clear and without debate, at the $300 - $400 price point, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is the dual core processor to get. "----------------
No offense Anand, but the 3800+ would have bent an $1100 840XE too but I guess you did'nt want to embaress Intel like that.;) Making 3800+ at any price point the 3800+ is the dual core processor to get. Just look in your forums -- people arn't buying the PentiumD's even at thier rock bottom discount prices. I've counted 44 X2's and one 820D and this is at the >$500 price points of 4200 and above!!! I expect 3800+ to literally explode in sales.
masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
> "Just look in your forums -- people arn't buying the PentiumD's even at thier rock bottom discount prices"Lol, what world are you living in? Intel is forecasting 2 million Pentium Ds shipped by the end of the year...the lowest independent forecasts are 500,000+ by year-end. Thats a lot more than the A64 X2 is going to sell this year.
> "but the 3800+ would have bent an $1100 840XE too but I guess you did'nt want to embaress Intel like that.;) "
Put down the crack pipe and step away from the keyboard.
Zebo - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
uh huh..http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/athlon64-x2/i...">http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/athlon64-x2/i...
Ouch! The $350 3800+ beats the $1100 840XE in 12/20 apps..How embarressing is that?
Don't even doubt me you just look stupid.
masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
> "Don't even doubt me you just look stupid. "God, the idiots really come out at night. The report you linked to is from May...the "3800" those benchmarks were run on isn't even the dual core X2...its the 2.4 GHZ single-core chip.
Thanks for a good laugh....feel free to keep posting.
DXM - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
I believe he meant to post this review showing the X2 3800 matching or besting the XE840 in all but a handful of tests:http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3...">http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3...
Aside from the snide comments, the gist of his assertion still stands.