Athlon -vs- Intel

-oRnein9- · 11-04-2004 10:03AM #1

I'm just thinking about upgrading at the mo, probably going to go for P4 3.2ghz, I was just wondering does the Athlon 64 give the P4 a run for its money. Which is better? I mostly play games, Cheers!

joePC · 11-04-2004 11:21AM

Yes the Althon 64 is a contender when put against the P4 but really only the FX1, go with the 3.2 P4 its a great processor and overclocks very well.

Do your research weither to go for the Northwood or Prescott core. The prescott runs at a higher temp.

Thanks joePC

Woden · 11-04-2004 12:06PM

bah it doesn't need to be an FX to beat a 3.2Ghz pentium, the 64 3200+ will do the job nicely in games

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1956&p=19

however while the new amd processors however seen some nice improvements in things like encoding and stuff the pentium's still have them here i think, depends on what you what to do with the chip tbh. as joe says the pentium will overclock better then the athlon, this is not a result of the chip though but due to no working agp/pci lock on the current 64 chipsets. this should be rectified with the new socket platform for the 64-bit chips and the nforce 3 250 chipset. so i wouldn't upgrade to a athlon at the moment with the new socket change imminent i'd wait. while if you going for a pentium you might as well pick it up now

data

Mutant_Fruit · 11-04-2004 12:56PM

Personally a nice swanky AMD 64 3000+ is enough to match the P4 EE 3.4ghz in most applications.

The 3000+ has half the L2 cache of the 3200+, but that doesn't impair the performance that much at all! So from the benchmark above, you can easily see that the 3200+ and 3000+ are all easily able to take on the P4 EE 3.4ghz in most areas.

So with price tags of €242.22 for the AMD 64 3000+, versus a whopping €440.06 for the Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz, i think the choice is clear.

Of course, if you had €450 to spare, you could always get the AMD 64 3400+ which would really whoop ass.

EDIT: Check out this benchmark

Sir Random · 11-04-2004 01:12PM

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
Personally a nice swanky AMD 64 3000+ is enough to match the P4 EE 3.4ghz in most applications.

Lol, are you basing that just on the UT benchmark?
Check out the real benchmarks:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1956&p=17

-oRnein9- · 11-04-2004 01:48PM

I just reviewed my budget, I can only afford an Athlon64 3000+ or P4 3ghz, Which is better for gaming?

RobertFoster · 11-04-2004 01:51PM

wouldn't it be better to wait a while until the 64bit technology is developed a bit more and there's more support for it?

joePC · 11-04-2004 01:54PM

P4 3.0Ghz

Or

3000+64

I'd go for the P4, It is a better processor all round, even if it drops a few point in benchmarking you wont notice any difference plus the P4 is way better for intensive applications e.g. Encoding, PS rendering etc....

The P4 is better.

Thanks joePC

Mutant_Fruit · 11-04-2004 01:57PM

I noticed the way you chose to link the stuff that Intel has always been strong at... Yes, i know intel is good at content creation. It always has been....

But check out the other results...

DirectX 9 is useless as a comparison, so we'll go through the others one by one...

DX8: the 3000+ is on average 2-3 fps behind...

OpenGL: On average about 6fps behind teh P4EE.

DivX: Intel is ahead on this one by about 10fps as compared to the 3000+, but if you used XviD as your mpeg4 encoder, AMD would be ahead. its all depending on the optimizations...

Development Workstation Performance: AMD well ahead.

If you really think that performance increase is worth paying twice the price... then go for the EE. If you want to compare price bracket for price bracket, compare the EE to the AMD3400+, and it compares very favourably.

EDIT: AMD's are better for gaming, check any benchmark out. Intels are really only good when it comes to compiling and business apps.

Matt Simis · 11-04-2004 01:57PM

Originally posted by joePC
P4 3.0Ghz

Or

3000+64

I'd go for the P4, It is a better processor all round, even if it drops a few point in benchmarking you wont notice any difference plus the P4 is way better for intensive applications e.g. Encoding, PS rendering etc....

The P4 is better.

Thanks joePC

Grrr.. how bout some facts and figures to back that up Joe?

Ive had both, P4 is the baseline performance CPU, Athlon64 is what excels above. Go 64.

Matt

Mutant_Fruit · 11-04-2004 02:00PM

C'mon, check the benchmarks before you put up unsubstantiated comments like that. I backed up my comments.

The 3000+ will excel against a P4 3.0ghz. Previously i was comparing it to the top of the line 3.4ghz EE, and it was keeping up with it (most of the time) but not beating it.

The 3000+ will beat the P4 3.0ghz hands down in gaming.

EDIT: clicky linky

Adeptus Titanicus · 11-04-2004 02:06PM

Now now... Lets all take a deep breath...

As far as I can see there's sod all difference between the p4 3.0 and the Athlon64 3000+. Not so much as matters anyway. What's a few FPS between friends?

When it gets this close most of it is personal preference anyway.

Woden · 11-04-2004 02:14PM

the 3.0ghz p4 northwood will overclock better on air, you'll be doing well to get more then 2.2ghz out of the amd on air and it will start depending on your other components like how well you graphics card likes a higher agp frequency, if the 3.0 ghz p4 and the 3000+ where similarly priced i think i'd take the pentium and overclock the crap out of it

data

Mutant_Fruit · 11-04-2004 02:14PM

in quake3 the AMD64 3000+ has a 30fps gain over the P4 3.0ghz.

And over 20fps of an advantage in the Unreal Tournament 2003 flyby.

Why not go for the better beast?

Gerry · 11-04-2004 02:17PM

Originally posted by joePC
P4 3.0Ghz

Or

3000+64

I'd go for the P4, It is a better processor all round, even if it drops a few point in benchmarking you wont notice any difference plus the P4 is way better for intensive applications e.g. Encoding, PS rendering etc....

The P4 is better.

Thanks joePC

That post is a bit headwrecking, how can a p4 drop a few points in benchmarking, but still be better at intensive applications? I think what you mean by "benchmarks" are games only, but surprisingly enough, its a popular way of measuring the performance of a broad range of applications. What you say about encoding/rendering performance needs to be backed up, the p4 is only faster on apps that have been very well optimized for it ( like lightwave, cinerama ). Even within these applications, certain scenarios will result in the a64 whupping the p4, it just does not have well rounded performance. Theres very little difference between the a64 and the p4 on stuff like 3dmax, mp3 encoding. The generalisations you are making may have had more truth in them a year ago, but you should look at some performance figures now before making them again. Tomshardware is a good place to start.

Woden · 11-04-2004 02:24PM

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
in quake3 the AMD64 3000+ has a 30fps gain over the P4 3.0ghz.

And over 20fps of an advantage in the Unreal Tournament 2003 flyby.

Why not go for the better beast?

not sure if this was directed at me but sure i'll respond anyway

, at this moment in time i just wouldn't recommend an amd 64 purely as i'd be thinking of how much i could overclock it, for a non-overclocker i'd think about switching back and going with the 64 proc again and if you are intersted in overclocking i'd still go with the recommendation of waithing for the socket 930 (is that the correct numbering) platform with then nf3 250 chipset and then overclock the 64 to my hearts content,

tbh i'm an amd fan, always up for what can be conceived as the underdog, i can't deny though that intel made some good stuff with there c chips leaving the xp far behind glad amd came back with the 64 bit though i think most of the benefits from that have come from the onboard memory controller its a tough call at the moment and i still recommend waiting

data

joePC · 11-04-2004 02:34PM

True the AMD 64 is better @ gaming, -Rnein9-
read this artical it should answer you questions.

AMD Vrs Intel

Thanks joePC

neokenzo · 11-04-2004 02:42PM

You can overclock the AMD more than 2.2Ghz. I've seen some ppl pushed it to even 2.4Ghz. Maybe it wont go as far as the the P4's but thats still something. The thing is getting the right mobo. Then you are able to really push it.

Sir Random · 11-04-2004 02:46PM

The AMDs are definitely better for gaming at stock, but the P4 3Ghz should easily o/clock to 3.4Ghz+, which will give it the edge.

If you plan to run a stock rig, get AMD. If you want to o/clock, get the P4.

Mutant_Fruit · 11-04-2004 02:58PM

One thing no-one has mentioned so far (including me) is that (unsurprisingly) the AMD is 64bit. Which means that it is future proof in a way the intels aren't.

When you run a 64bit OS, with proper 64bit drivers, you will once again get a speed boost. At the moment all that is being compared is the 32bit performances. Once you get a proper 64bit rig up, everything gets a boost.

I saw something before where Lame (an mp3 encoder) encoding times were compared between 64bit and 32 bit versions, and on the same chip the 64bit version was faster...

BloodBath · 11-04-2004 04:24PM

I know the prescott's are behind the northwood's and pretty much everything else in benchmarks but what's this about them having 64-bit extensions?

Like some of the early P4's having hyper threading. Is there any way of enabling it?

BloodBath

leeroybrown · 11-04-2004 08:03PM

64bit v.s 32bit:

People keep going on about 64bit being faster but it's only inproves very specific things:

- Ability to natively address larger memory space (server apps only benefit from this)
- Ability to use much larger numbers of threads (again server apps)
- Intensive floating point maths. (Lame falls into this category along with most scientific computing applications)

These points aside the 64bit binaries themselves tend to be ever so slightly slower (a few percent) due to a larger cache footprint. Solaris, one of the prime examples of a mature 64bit OS, by default is installed with almost all it's binaries as 32bit. The only things that come as 64bit are the kernel and specific libraries and binaries that are required for 64 bit applications. Some times there are two versions of specific libraies. Similarly, 64bit Linux is shipped with almost all of it's userland binaries in 32bit. Basically, 64bit only improves things that rely on it's strengths. Likewise an AMD64 build of Windows will be 32bit with whatever is needed to full 64bit compliance/abilities specially compiled. This is why Intel aren't planning 64bit extensions for desktop processors.

The performance of something like an Athlon64 is down to the design of the CPU and not that fact that it's '64bit'. The Athlon64 benefits from huge L1 cache (128Kb on the 3200), large L2 cache (1Mb on the 3200) and a good caching model (something the P4 could do with, although Hyperthreading goes some way to eleviating this). I'm a big fan of the Athlon64 and as someone who works with server equipment like the idea of it 64bit as I can see the advantages.

secret_squirrel · 11-04-2004 08:44PM

Im an amd fan but I'd lean towards the P4 3gz at this stage since afaik as long as you chose correctly your motherboards gonna have a bit longer life in it than an AMD based mobo thats gonna be out of date in the next few months (amd socket change that data mentioned). Although I think I read that the current AMD64 socket will have up to a 3700/3800+ coming out for it.

astrofool · 11-04-2004 09:53PM

u're a bit off there on your 64bit comments leeroybrown.

Intel is going to be bringing 64bit to desktop. 64bit compiled apps generally take up less space than 32bit compilations, and will use less instructions to do the same job.

In general, going 64bit gives about a 10-15% performance improvement, all other things being equal.

nadir · 11-04-2004 10:26PM

Originally posted by astrofool
u're a bit off there on your 64bit comments leeroybrown.

Intel is going to be bringing 64bit to desktop. 64bit compiled apps generally take up less space than 32bit compilations, and will use less instructions to do the same job.

In general, going 64bit gives about a 10-15% performance improvement, all other things being equal.

but this increases is only noticed on 32bit binaries becasue of the larger cache, and basically its not going to make much of a difference at all on a 32bit windows compile. You would be better off speding the cash on a fast 32bit processor.
So basically Leeroybrown is right with his 3 main points

- Ability to natively address larger memory space (server apps only benefit from this)
- Ability to use much larger numbers of threads (again server apps)
- Intensive floating point maths. (Lame falls into this category along with most scientific computing applications)

So if you are just going to be playing 32bit compiled games on a 32 bit OS , you are wasting your money buying a 64 bit chip, its pointless.
On the other hand as Leeroybrown points out, if you are going to to be running a tru 64 bit kernel - servers or what not, then 64 bit by all means.

OfflerCrocGod · 11-04-2004 10:46PM

Originally posted by astrofool

Intel is going to be bringing 64bit to desktop. 64bit compiled apps generally take up less space than 32bit compilations, and will use less instructions to do the same job.

In general, going 64bit gives about a 10-15% performance improvement, all other things being equal.

Ummm not quite right

Most 32-bit applications perform better compiled as a 32-bit binary, because more of the application binary fits in the computer's cache. When a 32-bit application is recompiled for 64 bits, the 64-bit binary is typically larger than its 32-bit binary. With a given cache size available on a system, performance may actually decline because of a greater number of cache misses when running the 64-bit binary.

From HPs site waffling about HP-UX and there is also this OSNews article (Size Factor).

Mutant_Fruit · 11-04-2004 11:18PM

yes, but the thing is stuff will be coming out designed for 64-bit from the ground up, not ports from32 to 64 bit. Thats where the speed boosts will come from.

For those of you using linux, you already have a working 64bit OS, and stuff can easily be optimizied for 64bit. For those of you using windows, you willb e waiting a long time for your proper 64-bit stuff.

All in all, the AMD chips are still a great 32bit solution.

astrofool · 11-04-2004 11:38PM

there's an article on anandtech that will explain it all better, www.anandtech.com search for it

(it goes into machine code level, so you have to know a little about your 8086's and 6800 chips)

Col_Loki · 12-04-2004 12:38AM

So if you are just going to be playing 32bit compiled games on a 32 bit OS , you are wasting your money buying a 64 bit chip, its pointless.

But the thing is your not paying any extra for the 64bit chip (AMD64 & Fx's)and it performs extremely well in 32bit app's & games. Its an option that cant be bad to have dont you think, any possible performance gains for no extra money has to be good....... sure isint that why we overclock

Mutant_Fruit · 12-04-2004 03:05AM

It helps if you think of teh AMD 64's as excellant 32bit chips, well able to hold their own against similarly price-bracketed chips from intel, with the added bonus of having 64bit support, which will (in time) lead to greater performance boosts over intel's chips.

secret_squirrel · 12-04-2004 03:22PM

Originally posted by nadir
So if you are just going to be playing 32bit compiled games on a 32 bit OS , you are wasting your money buying a 64 bit chip, its pointless.

Not true - if your 64bit processor can run 32bit apps better than the equivalently priced 32bit chip (as is arguably true with the Athlon64 vs P4 ) Then it makes sense to get the Athlon64 since you get a faster chip with a degree of future proofing, and a possible performance gain down the road.

Athlon -vs- Intel

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