Athlon (up to XP) vs Pentium 4 (up to Northwood)
- Thread starter Stlr22
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So's the Netburst (m)Architecture. Yes the later Northwoods do perform very well but they still lack the raw FPU grunt power of an Athlon. Plus hyperthreading is annoying because its effectiveness is directly proportional to the inefficiency of the processor.
It was built for high clocks first, everything else after.
It was built for high clocks first, everything else after.
Umm....there was like a whole year where Intel was the uncontested performance champion because AMD couldn't get anything out faster than the 2800.(not sure why, since overclockers were able to easily) After intel released the 3.0 or 3.06 ghz (whichever came first/had 800 mhz bus) amd didn't reclaim the performance crown until athlon 64.
As efficient as the Athlon XP is clock for clock compared to a P4, AMD's performance ratings were suffering from inflated performance ratings for the XPs, especially up at 3200+.
Even if we were to assume AMD's official stance that the rating was to show equivalence to what clock speed a thunderbird would have to be at to perform likewise, the performance numbers simply didn't show such scaling at all.
I'm glad the A64's are rated more conservatively, though that will probably only last until the later grades are released and AMD starts to slip into the habit of fudging the numbers.
Even if we were to assume AMD's official stance that the rating was to show equivalence to what clock speed a thunderbird would have to be at to perform likewise, the performance numbers simply didn't show such scaling at all.
I'm glad the A64's are rated more conservatively, though that will probably only last until the later grades are released and AMD starts to slip into the habit of fudging the numbers.
Whoops, must have let one too many posts out of the old cloning vat.
As efficient as the Athlon XP is clock for clock compared to a P4, AMD's performance ratings were suffering from inflated performance ratings for the XPs, especially up at 3200+. The 3200+ didn't seem all that close to a P4 3.2Ghz in many benchmarks or software test runs that I've seen.
Even if we were to assume AMD's official stance that the rating was to show equivalence to what clock speed a thunderbird would have to be at to perform likewise, the performance numbers simply didn't show such scaling at all.
I'm glad the A64's are rated more conservatively, though that will probably only last until the later grades are released and AMD starts to slip into the habit of fudging the numbers.
As efficient as the Athlon XP is clock for clock compared to a P4, AMD's performance ratings were suffering from inflated performance ratings for the XPs, especially up at 3200+. The 3200+ didn't seem all that close to a P4 3.2Ghz in many benchmarks or software test runs that I've seen.
Even if we were to assume AMD's official stance that the rating was to show equivalence to what clock speed a thunderbird would have to be at to perform likewise, the performance numbers simply didn't show such scaling at all.
I'm glad the A64's are rated more conservatively, though that will probably only last until the later grades are released and AMD starts to slip into the habit of fudging the numbers.
My next CPU will likely be a A64. They just seem to be better for games, except for the P4E. I will never pay 1K for a CPU though, when a slightly slower CPU can be had for less then half of that price. 90% of what I do on my PC is playing games. I dont do photoshop, encoding, ripping, or anything else. I have never noticed any improvement with HT because I dont have multiple programs open at once, that are system intensive.
Currently I have a 3.0c at 3.9gig, on one machine. And a 1800+@1.9gig in another. I am happy with both, but there is no denying that the AMD gives me a far better performance/money ratio.
Currently I have a 3.0c at 3.9gig, on one machine. And a 1800+@1.9gig in another. I am happy with both, but there is no denying that the AMD gives me a far better performance/money ratio.
Ive only ever upgraded my pc twice in my life and am on a duron 1.4. since my power blew out, shorting and destroying my new 9800 pro im well miffed at going back to my riva tnt and am thinking about just making a brand new system but ive never done it b4.
i dont know where to begin... im not interested in this who held the performance longest stuff, im interested in which to buy. some people say p4 is better some say amd. i dont know that much except ive been told to get a motherboard and processor both 800 fsb. can anyone help? i dont understand amds numbers.. i was thinking about a 2.8p4 purely for gaming and the next gen. of games? whats anyones advice? will this 64 thing be worth waiting for or will it cost twice as much? i dont know much about it. maybe amd make close to a 2.8 but for cheaper? your the people to ask i figure. what ya think?
and anything on motherboards would be helpful too... all i know is to match fsb to reach full potential but the salespeople try to hook u into firewire and all that crap.. im not interested in networking... just gaming.
i dont know where to begin... im not interested in this who held the performance longest stuff, im interested in which to buy. some people say p4 is better some say amd. i dont know that much except ive been told to get a motherboard and processor both 800 fsb. can anyone help? i dont understand amds numbers.. i was thinking about a 2.8p4 purely for gaming and the next gen. of games? whats anyones advice? will this 64 thing be worth waiting for or will it cost twice as much? i dont know much about it. maybe amd make close to a 2.8 but for cheaper? your the people to ask i figure. what ya think?
and anything on motherboards would be helpful too... all i know is to match fsb to reach full potential but the salespeople try to hook u into firewire and all that crap.. im not interested in networking... just gaming.
Overall, the Athlon64 3000+ is a very good processor for gaming right now. The A64 architecture is stronger in games than P4 but not as fast in multitasking or multimedia.
If you want to go P4 then yes, you do need the 800FSB because P4 is a very bandwidth, hungry processor. For the Athlon64 FSB isn't really an issue, since they don't really have one, they use a completely different method of interfacing the CPU with the rest of the system. In simple terms an Intel processor has one connection (the FSB) which connects to the northbridge which then splits off from there towards memory, AGP, and the southbridge. AMD's A64 architecture connects the memory directly to the CPU and then runs another connection from the processor that everything else hangs off.
As to the 64-bit, don't let that put you off, we ran 16-bit applications on 32-bt hardware for a good ten years. So running 32-bit software on 64-bit hardware shouldn't be an issue.
If you want to go P4 then yes, you do need the 800FSB because P4 is a very bandwidth, hungry processor. For the Athlon64 FSB isn't really an issue, since they don't really have one, they use a completely different method of interfacing the CPU with the rest of the system. In simple terms an Intel processor has one connection (the FSB) which connects to the northbridge which then splits off from there towards memory, AGP, and the southbridge. AMD's A64 architecture connects the memory directly to the CPU and then runs another connection from the processor that everything else hangs off.
As to the 64-bit, don't let that put you off, we ran 16-bit applications on 32-bt hardware for a good ten years. So running 32-bit software on 64-bit hardware shouldn't be an issue.
I'll second Rugor's advice, for gaming, Athlon 64 is the way to go and the 3000+ is probably the price / performance sweet spot of that line.00fil00 said:
However, if you could wait another quarter or so, you might want to do that as AMD is changing sockets again, adding dual channel memory to the Athlon 64 and you might be stranded a year down the line if you buy today's equipment. Though if you're not much of an upgrade anyway, just go ahead and get one!
As for the motherboard / chipsets, their performance is really close, no matter if nVidia, Via, SiS, AMD or ALi/ULi is supplying the chipset. Just get a board with the features you require.
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thanks for explaining about the fsb routing to the cpu, learnt something today. was wonderin why amd products dont say their fsb. why doesnt amd tell us what Ghz their processors run at? its hard to compare 2 different scales of numbers, ud reckon a 3000 amd would be better than a 2800p4 but im seeing amd bump up their "numbers" for some reason and therefore cant compare. im still not sure tho.. i mean yea sure i can wait a while, not interested in anything till doom3 and hl2 anyway but if u keep on waiting for the next best thing then something is always in the horizon. guess it depends how much of an influence this duel thingy is gonna be, but i know nothing of it so ill have to wait or ask around. keep the replies coming if u like people, im learning slowly 
i just been looking around, i thought people bought amd because there the "underdog" and cheaper? the 3200 64 is the same price as the 3200p4 and there both roughly the same performance? i thought people went for amd cuz they didnt want to pay the extra price for the name of intel? kinda doesnt work if there both the same prices now. think ill wait for the dual memory but how much extra wil that be? add a £50? £150? not sure if its worth it.
While the P4 3.2 and the A64 3200+ do have similar performance, the A64 is better for games. P4's real strength is in multimedia.
AMD and Intel have their processors optimized for very different things. Inte' is optimizing for pure clockspeed, while AMD is optimizing for performance. Essentially Intel is saying if you make the clockspeed high enough it will outperform the competitor, and AMD is saying if you make it run apps faster who cares about the clockspeed.
AMD's performance ratings are a direct result of what Intel did with the P4. When the Athlon was introduced its direct competitor was the PIII, and the two had broadly similar clock for clock performance. So people could directly compare the two at equal clockspeeds. When P4 was introduced it had much lower clock for clock performance, but much higher clock speeds, so the comparisons were harder. In many ways Intel (not AMD) tried to pull a fast one. P4, like PIII and the Athlon was being sold by the MHz, on the grounds more MHz was better. However, when P4 was introduced the value of each MHz dropped. It was like saying our CPU is worth more dollars than yours but without saying you were using Canadian dollars while the other was using US dollars.
If you're buying a new gaming system now, Athlon64 is your best choice. If you're going to wait, well we'll have to give you advice then based on what's on the market then.
AMD and Intel have their processors optimized for very different things. Inte' is optimizing for pure clockspeed, while AMD is optimizing for performance. Essentially Intel is saying if you make the clockspeed high enough it will outperform the competitor, and AMD is saying if you make it run apps faster who cares about the clockspeed.
AMD's performance ratings are a direct result of what Intel did with the P4. When the Athlon was introduced its direct competitor was the PIII, and the two had broadly similar clock for clock performance. So people could directly compare the two at equal clockspeeds. When P4 was introduced it had much lower clock for clock performance, but much higher clock speeds, so the comparisons were harder. In many ways Intel (not AMD) tried to pull a fast one. P4, like PIII and the Athlon was being sold by the MHz, on the grounds more MHz was better. However, when P4 was introduced the value of each MHz dropped. It was like saying our CPU is worth more dollars than yours but without saying you were using Canadian dollars while the other was using US dollars.
If you're buying a new gaming system now, Athlon64 is your best choice. If you're going to wait, well we'll have to give you advice then based on what's on the market then.