Help me sort out the AMD Athlon 64 CPU models

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

I'm thinking of building a new high-end system (not bleading edge, no
overclocking). The primary justification is Photoshop CS. Pricewatch
shows 11 different Athlon64 models ($126-$739) differing in clock
speed, cache size, and bus speed. I believe the FX models are now
"history" so we are talking about a choice of 8 models.

It's commonly said that in 32 bit mode am AMD64 is faster than any
Intel Pentium chip. How accurate is that statement ?

I'll hand-wave and guess that as a single-user system running a
compute-intensive single process that crunches multi-MB chunks of data
in memory in a linear fashion, bus speed and clock trump cache
size. I'm not sure what CPU models that would indicate.

A few weeks ago I heard that AMD was about to announce new models
and/or prices. Has that happened yet. I'd just as soon wait for that.

FWIW I've been using 64bit servers for almost 10 years, and know the
tradeoffs of 32bit and 64bit. I want to buy in the price-performance
"sweet spot". I know anything that I buy today will seem obosete 3
months later. That's life.

Comments ?

Thanks

--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

> It's commonly said that in 32 bit mode am AMD64 is faster than any
> Intel Pentium chip. How accurate is that statement ?

About as accurate as any blanket statement that X is faster than Y. It
depends on the benchmark. Athlon 64s tend to be faster than similarly
priced P4s in games and office applications, whereas P4s still rule the
content encoding and synthetic memory bandwidth benchmarks.

Athlon 64s are, however, generally faster than similarly clocked Athlon
XPs--thanks largely to their integrated memory controllers (and, to an
extent in certain benchmarks, their SSE2 support). This is why, in my
opinion, it doesn't make sense to buy a new Athlon XP system anymore,
when an Athlon 64 2800+ can be had for less than $150 and will
outperform even a $200+ Athlon XP 3200+.

> FWIW I've been using 64bit servers for almost 10 years, and know the
> tradeoffs of 32bit and 64bit. I want to buy in the price-performance
> "sweet spot". I know anything that I buy today will seem obosete 3
> months later. That's life.

My suggestion is the S754 Athlon 64 3000+ (about $175 currently). The
single-channel memory interface looks a lot slower in synthetic memory
bandwidth tests, but real-world benchmarks don't seem to show a whole
lot of difference. Certainly not enough to justify the high price of
S939 CPUs (the cheapest of which is still over $400).

Of course, in three months this will probably change, leaving me to
regret the S754 CPU I just bought. But, as you say, that's life. :)
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

I would still wait for the 939 boards (Nforce 3), I heard they will be the
higher end socket board and will be around for a long time, and it will be
more stable to as well.
"Lachoneus" <lachoneus@nonexistent.invalid> wrote in message
news:chf68u$3ln$1@news.xmission.com...
>> It's commonly said that in 32 bit mode am AMD64 is faster than any
>> Intel Pentium chip. How accurate is that statement ?
>
> About as accurate as any blanket statement that X is faster than Y. It
> depends on the benchmark. Athlon 64s tend to be faster than similarly
> priced P4s in games and office applications, whereas P4s still rule the
> content encoding and synthetic memory bandwidth benchmarks.
>
> Athlon 64s are, however, generally faster than similarly clocked Athlon
> XPs--thanks largely to their integrated memory controllers (and, to an
> extent in certain benchmarks, their SSE2 support). This is why, in my
> opinion, it doesn't make sense to buy a new Athlon XP system anymore, when
> an Athlon 64 2800+ can be had for less than $150 and will outperform even
> a $200+ Athlon XP 3200+.
>
>> FWIW I've been using 64bit servers for almost 10 years, and know the
>> tradeoffs of 32bit and 64bit. I want to buy in the price-performance
>> "sweet spot". I know anything that I buy today will seem obosete 3
>> months later. That's life.
>
> My suggestion is the S754 Athlon 64 3000+ (about $175 currently). The
> single-channel memory interface looks a lot slower in synthetic memory
> bandwidth tests, but real-world benchmarks don't seem to show a whole lot
> of difference. Certainly not enough to justify the high price of S939
> CPUs (the cheapest of which is still over $400).
>
> Of course, in three months this will probably change, leaving me to regret
> the S754 CPU I just bought. But, as you say, that's life. :)
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

In article <b8H_c.1237$296.5849@news1.mts.net>, Raj <rajiv01@mts.net> wrote:
>I would still wait for the 939 boards (Nforce 3), I heard they will be the
>higher end socket board and will be around for a long time, and it will be
>more stable to as well.


What's to wait for ? newegg shows several 939-socket mobos and 5 AMD
processors.

A price drop ?

The cheapest 939-flavor CPU is more than twice the price of a
754-socket CPU. The mobo is more expensive, also.

What's the advantage. I see the mobo takes the same memory as the 754,
so it can't be much faster. Does it interlace the memory cycles ? Mow
big a win is that ?


>"Lachoneus" <lachoneus@nonexistent.invalid> wrote in message
>news:chf68u$3ln$1@news.xmission.com...
>>> It's commonly said that in 32 bit mode am AMD64 is faster than any
>>> Intel Pentium chip. How accurate is that statement ?
>>
>> About as accurate as any blanket statement that X is faster than Y. It
>> depends on the benchmark. Athlon 64s tend to be faster than similarly
>> priced P4s in games and office applications, whereas P4s still rule the
>> content encoding and synthetic memory bandwidth benchmarks.
>>
>> Athlon 64s are, however, generally faster than similarly clocked Athlon
>> XPs--thanks largely to their integrated memory controllers (and, to an
>> extent in certain benchmarks, their SSE2 support). This is why, in my
>> opinion, it doesn't make sense to buy a new Athlon XP system anymore, when
>> an Athlon 64 2800+ can be had for less than $150 and will outperform even
>> a $200+ Athlon XP 3200+.
>>
>>> FWIW I've been using 64bit servers for almost 10 years, and know the
>>> tradeoffs of 32bit and 64bit. I want to buy in the price-performance
>>> "sweet spot". I know anything that I buy today will seem obosete 3
>>> months later. That's life.
>>
>> My suggestion is the S754 Athlon 64 3000+ (about $175 currently). The
>> single-channel memory interface looks a lot slower in synthetic memory
>> bandwidth tests, but real-world benchmarks don't seem to show a whole lot
>> of difference. Certainly not enough to justify the high price of S939
>> CPUs (the cheapest of which is still over $400).
>>
>> Of course, in three months this will probably change, leaving me to regret
>> the S754 CPU I just bought. But, as you say, that's life. :)
>
>


--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 12:59:31 -0400, Al Dykes wrote:

> The cheapest 939-flavor CPU is more than twice the price of a
> 754-socket CPU. The mobo is more expensive, also.
>
And there's only minimal performance increase with the same clocked/cached
cpu's. Anyone telling you that 939 is way faster has more money than
brains. The only difference in the 724 and 939 us the dual channel memory
bus. Now if you run bandwidth benachmarks all day you can see considerably
higher numbers with the 939. But run mormal apps, and there's not much
dofference. This alticle made give you some insight between single and
dual channel.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=5

> What's the advantage.

You get to pay a lot more for the dual channel.🙂

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.htm
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

And there's only minimal performance increase with the same clocked/cached
cpu's. Anyone telling you that 939 is way faster has more money than
brains. The only difference in the 724 and 939 us the dual channel memory
bus. Now if you run bandwidth benachmarks all day you can see considerably
higher numbers with the 939. But run mormal apps, and there's not much
dofference. This alticle made give you some insight between single and
dual channel.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------
The Hyper Transport buss is 1 GHZ on the 939 and is only 800 MHZ on the 754
cpu's. Dont khow how much this will help but it is higher. DOUG
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 20:57:48 +0000, Courseyauto wrote:

> And there's only minimal performance increase with the same clocked/cached
> cpu's. Anyone telling you that 939 is way faster has more money than
> brains. The only difference in the 724 and 939 us the dual channel memory
> bus. Now if you run bandwidth benachmarks all day you can see considerably
> higher numbers with the 939. But run mormal apps, and there's not much
> dofference. This alticle made give you some insight between single and
> dual channel.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------------
> The Hyper Transport buss is 1 GHZ on the 939 and is only 800 MHZ on the 754
> cpu's. Dont khow how much this will help but it is higher. DOUG

The Chipset provides the bus clock, not the cpu. If a 754 and 939 board
use the same chipset, they are both capable of the same speeds.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.htm
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

I've got the 1000(5x) HT option on my Chaintech VNF-3 250(socket 754) mobo.

>------------------------
> The Hyper Transport buss is 1 GHZ on the 939 and is only 800 MHZ on the 754
>cpu's. Dont khow how much this will help but it is higher. DOUG
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

Firstly the FX chip is NOT obsolete, this is AMD's flagship and is a bit
faster than the rest of the range, in effect this chip is an Opteron (server
chip) with a faster clock speed and is intended for game junkies. So if you
want the best then get this.


Secondly where on earth did you get the idea that 754 chips and motherboards
are half the cost of a 939 setup???? a high spec 939 board costs in the UK
about 80-90 pounds the same 754 board is 80-90 pounds. there is a 10 percent
price difference between 754 and 939 (939 being more) but that is about it.
Its pretty pointless getting a 754 board as the 939 supports more chips and
AMD will support this chip more than the 754 flavour.

Dual channel memory is a waste of time, it is another marketing ploy to get
you to buy another motherboard, the REAL difference between a top non dual
channel board and a dual channel board is ZERO , in fact take the MSI KT600
Delta board (socket a board) which is a single channel board and out
performs all the NVIDA dual channel boards. Visit www.tomshardware.com if
you don't believe me.
 
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