Athlon 64 3200+ Poor Performance

[alexmcohen]

Ok, here's the deal, as far as I'm concerned an Athlon 64 3200+ is supposed to outperform a Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz. Well, I paired one with an ECS 755-A2, 512GB DDR400, GeForce 6600GT; and to my surprise my old P4 3.0Ghz, MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R, GeForce 6600GT, outperformed it big time. DOOM 3 was playable on my P4 while it wasnt on the Athlon, I even Sysmark 03 and my P4 scored 2000 points more than the Athlon.

Now, can anyone explain this to me?

[skold]

the cpu is one component in an entire system full of parts. if doom 3 is 'unplayable' (depending on your definition) then something is seriously wrong, because I've personally had doom 3 at a playable level on a 1.4ghz pentium-m and a radeon mobility 9000

id suggest you start by checking your hardware to make sure everything is running at the proper clock speed, and then check your os install and drivers.

as for sysmark, I'm not sure what a normal score is, but intel chips usually outscore amd chips by a fair margin. i think amd actually filed a lawsuit or at least bitched a lot about that.

[alexmcohen]

Thanks alot "skold", I didn't know that data about Sysmark and Intel cpus, but I think my statement about Doom 3 not being playable on the Athlon was a little misleading, I mean it is playable, but I dont get decent FPS, at least not enough to call it playable.

[chipcollector]

alexmcohen, i may have the answer and solution to your problem.

Athlon 64 cpu's are cpus with a 64bit interface, while pentium is 32bit. The possible reason why doom 3 is running slow is because the cpu has to emulate the 32 bit program (doom 3) to run on a 64bit system. I suggest you get some 64bit apps and games for that pc.

But I agree, pentium 4 smokes the 64bit processors. I really have no idea where people come up with these rediculous benchmarks that score thousands of points higher the p4.
I have a 3.4ghz socket 775, pci-express. There is no difference whatsoever between the 3.0ghz 775 and 3.6ghz 775, just like there is no difference between the 1ghz athlon and the 2.4ghz pentium 4.

Sure, go ahead and spend $1000 for a cpu that most likely wont have any visible increase in performance.
But what good is it to the average pc user?

[skold]

actually athlon 64s dont do any emulation.. the 64 bit stuff is an extension to the 32 bit.. theyre basically a (faster) athlon xp, with extra 64 bit instructions tacked on. so theyre every bit as fast as a pentium (and moreso imo)

also, i dont know where youre buying cpus, but the athlon 64 line is still cheaper than the p4 line..

$235 AMD® Athlon™ 64 3200+ w/800Mhz FSB 512K Box
$275 Intel® Pentium® P4 540 3.2GHz - 800MHz FSB Retail (1MB Cache)

and dont even get me started on motherboard costs..

$209 Asus A8N-SLI S939 nForce4 SLI Chipset 2PCI-E/3+2PCI/4DDR, w/Sound Gigabit Lan SATA Raid USB 2.0 ATA-133
$259 Asus P5AD2-E Deluxe S775 i925XE Chipset 1066Mhz PCI-Ex16/2PCI-E/3PCI/4DDR2, w/Sound GB-Lan SATA Raid IEEE 1394

$50 cheaper and you get SLI, and althouhg it doesnt say it, that board also has firewire.

as for ddr2, ive heard its rather lackluster at the moment, not enough to justify the price difference:

$199 1GB PC3200 400Mhz 184pin DDR (Kingston KVR400X64C3A/1G)
$249 1GB DDR2 533Mhz (Kingston KVR533D2N4/1G)

and finally, i hope you never want to upgrade your cpu. ive heard those socket 775 boards are rated for something like 2-5 insertions before youll end up with bent pins and a dead socket.

[chipcollector]

Hi Skold,

People tend to get the illusion that since AMD is 64Bit, it's double the speed. Sorry to break it to you, but it's not. In order to get that 64bit "power" out of it, you'll need to rebuy all your software in the 64bit version, not to mention the selection of 64bit software is VERY limited. Let's not forget that the software won't be running any faster, and the cpu has to work harder and hotter to run the 64bit software.

Intel has released a cpu for the socket 775 type, that run 64bit software natively as well as 32bit software. It is known as the 600 series. Right now, for a 3.2ghz AND 2MB OF CACHE, you can buy this 600 series for $240 on newegg.com. Good bye AMD.

Don't know where you found your prices, I bought:
the top of the line 775 mobo for $142, the Abit AA8 Duramax ( Comes loaded with many built-in features such as IN-OUT Optical Sound, 7.1 High Definition Surround, (2) USB 2 Ports, 2 USB 1 ports, firewire, 1 Gigabit LAN and all the other standard ingrediants that come with older boards such as serial port, printer port, keyboard etc etc)

pentium 3.4ghz LGA775 1MB for $190 shipped, which is currently overclocked to 3.75Ghz
$215 for 2 PQI DDR2-PC2-4200 512mb x 2, with 3-3-3-8 stepping
a PCI-Express NX6600GT Videocard for $190
and a 250GB Sata harddrive for $130.

Don't let the specs fool you. DDR2 is double the speed of regular DDR, and is 240 pin instead of the low bandwidth 184pin memory.
Socket 775 cpu's don't use pins on the cpu, but on the motherboard. Now that they can fit more pins, more information can go through, getting higher bandwidth, almost double of the 478.
PCI-Express video cards use the PCI-Express socket, supposedly gives 16x the speed of regular AGP.
And to top it off you get an extremely stable and reliable motherboard and a generous batch of software and hardware that comes with it.

Intel is cheaper and has a vast choice for upgrades whether it's a mainstream or a top of the line product.

[skold]

LOL

ok, time out

nowhere in my post did i say, or even imply, that 64bit cpus are twice as fast as 32 bit cpus. what i said was that the athlon 64 is NOT emulating 32 bit, so its JUST AS FAST as a pentium 4, because its also native 32 bit. im well aware of the fact that you need to have 64 bit apps to take advantage of the 64bit extensions, but that doesnt mean the athlon 64 line isnt a completely capable 32bit processor. also, saying that 64bit software wont run faster than 32bit is just plain wrong. depending on the software, how well its optimized for the architecture, etc, some software could FLY compared to the 32bit equivilant. for example, anything that works with large numbers, like video editing software or database software. especially when paired with a large amount of physical memory that a 64bit processor can address.

as for intels emt64 cpus, they couldnt reverse engineer amd's cpus fast enough. the opteron and athlon 64 were the final nail in the itaniums coffin. go check it out, intels 64bit extensions are virtually identical to amds.

the cpu you mentioned, a 3.2ghz pentium 4 with emt64 and 2mb cache, is $290 retail:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-197&depa=1

I don't see an oem version of this cpu on newegg, so I don't know where you got $240 from.

heres the amd competition for that cpu:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-483&depa=1

$190, also retail boxed.

as for how they perform, heres some scores from anandtech, which you can read here:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2353&p=1

audio encoding (lower is better):
amd: 540 seconds
intel: 517 seconds
intel by 23 seconds.

video encoding (higher is better):
amd: 27.8 fps
intel: 30.1 fps
intel by 2.3fps

gaming performance - doom 3 - fps
amd: 90.3fps
intel: 82.5fps
amd by 7.8fps

gaming performance - unreal tournament - fps
amd: 58.7fps
intel: 54.6fps
amd by 4.1fps

rendering - 3dsmax - lower is better
amd: 278 seconds
intel: 286 seconds
amd by 8 seconds

compiling - visual studio 6 - lower is better
amd: 15 seconds
intel: 18.4 seconds
amd by 3.4 seconds

all of these are pretty damn close. and the amd cpu is almost $100 cheaper.

my prices were in canadian dollars, a fact i neglected to mention. so if they seem high to you, thats why. just ignore the amounts and notice that the comparable parts i listed are generally cheaper on the amd side of things.

also, that a8n-sli board i mentioned can accomodate TWO of those 6600gt cards, which will be almost twice as fast as one single card. im not sure if the nforce5 is out yet, but until it is i dont think the intel platform has any sli chipsets.

as for sata hds, amd systems obviously have those too

i wont deny intel motherboards and cpus are stable, they have a well earned reputation for that. however, that doesn't mean that amd cpus and motherboards aren't stable. maybe, 8 or 9 years ago, when paired with a crappy via or sis chipset, you could have said that, but not today.

and as for cheaper, i think i just proved thats entirely wrong. that has NEVER been true. amd has always been cheaper than intel, thats their entire business. im not even sure where you came up with that one..

[chipcollector]

[chipcollector]

[skold]

why would i care what most peoples impression is?

most people get the impression that a 2.8ghz cpu is ALWAYS going to be faster than a 2.2ghz cpu. if the 2.2ghz cpu is an athlon 64, and the 2.8ghz cpu is a pentium 4, this will rarely be the case in almost any test you can think of.

do you know why its called the pentium 4 550 or 650 and not the pentium 4 3.2ghz with 64bit extensions? because intel's finally got one of their own products (the pentium m) which runs at a low clock speed but is capable of kicking the shit out of a much higher clocked pentium 4. no one wants to buy notebooks with pentium M's, because they can get notebooks with much higher clocked p4-ms in them. so now, the pentium M is the 700 series, and the P4-ms are lower numbers.

the moral of the story: peoples impressions of things dont matter for shit

as for the benchmarks you listed, do you often run sysmark as a normal application? the benchmarks i posted were actual applications doing actual things that a person might do with the cpu. and with those two comparable cpus, the intel one only won a few tests by the slightest of margins. also, like i said, sysmark is known to be biased in intel's favor, so i wouldnt put too much faith in those benchmarks.

and finally, the 550 costs EXACTLY the same as the 640. it runs a whopping 200mhz faster, lacks the 64 bit extensions, and has half the cache.

lastly, you have a funny definition of 'crushes'

im done, however. this thread will never go anywhere. you can keep buying intel, i have no interest in recruiting you to the other side, but the only intel products im going to buy will be pentium M's

to alexmcohen: my advice still stands -- check your drivers, and make sure everythings running at the proper speeds

[chipcollector]

You're right. There's no point in continuing the argument because it seems you're offended by the benchmarks. I can only prove it to alexmcohen and people like him.
Like he said, "and to my surprise my old P4 3.0Ghz, MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R, GeForce 6600GT, outperformed it big time. "
Enough Said

[skold]

lol.

it seems youre offended by people who don't think intel is the best thing since sliced bread

if i take an intel system and dont install the proper chipset drivers, have things clocked wrong, etc, and it performs like crap, its ok with you if i blame intel?

[chipcollector]

[jrmunro]

skold don`t waste any more of your time on someone who always has to argue about eveything.

john

[pphillips12]

I normally build a new machine about every year and upgrade video cards about twice a year (I do a lot of online gaming).

I've always been a big Intel fan. I'm still running a 2.4C @ 3.25GHz in a rig a built almost 2 years ago. I'm also still running an ATI 9800XT I bought over a year ago.

But I'm playing a waiting game right now. My current rig still runs the latest games ok and until something comes out it can't handle, I can't see building a new machine.

I guess you could say I'm letting the software drive the hardware.

I'm hoping Intel will come out with something between now and when the new games like BF2, DS2, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R come out this fall. Otherwise, I'll be looking real hard at AMD;).