2400+ Mobile, 2600+ Mobile, A64 3000+ or up?

[irenealan]

Hi:

I am deciding to buy whether the Athlon Mobile or the A64 chip. But really would like comments from all of you whether I should jump for the A64 as the whole set would cost another $200.

Also for both Mobile and A64, which speed would be a nice bargain? I know the 2400+ and 2600+ have a difference of $30 or more but is there much difference in performance between the two?

How about the A64 3000+ and 3200+, should I spend the extra bucks for the 3200+?

Thanks for everyone's help as I found you guys are very knowledgable about these chips.

 

[myocardia]

Although I personally don't think you should spend the extra money on an A64 yet, if you go with a mobile Barton, get the 2600. They hit 2.5ghz on air, without having to overvolt them much, like the other two mobile chips are requiring. And, if you decide on an A64, save the money on the difference between the 3000 and the 3200, because the extra 512KB of cache only seems to make a difference when it comes to video encoding. Of course, if you are a big video encoder, forget everything I've just told you, and get a 3.0C and an Abit IC7.

 

[irenealan]

Sorry I am a newbie, but what exactly is Video Encoding? I refer to Video Encoding as Decrypting and Encoding a DVD (making copies of my DVD), but would the AMD do just fine for that type of job or the P4 would way faster? (by how many %)

Also if I would like to burn AVI files to DVD or VCD so I can watch in my DVD player, what should I do? Do that involve alot of Video Encoding?

However, I rarely copy DVD, maybe once or twice a month but I may download some Anime clips and would like to burn them into VCD or DVD to watch in a bigger TV...

Other than that I don't know if there's anything else I do related to Video Encoding... I know for playing games and compiling or running JAVA, AMD is the best. That's why I consider getting a AMD... but I wonder if the A64 would help in Multiprocess... since I would like to download files from newsgroup, extract files, maybe encoding AVI to VCD or DVD format, burn VCD or DVD and compile Java all at same time, that's why I ask if I should get the A64! Plus there's a test version of the Win64, I wonder if it would help boost up the Windows performance alot if I get the A64 with the Win64...

Thanks again for everyone's comment, please advise!

 

[myocardia]

Irene, with what you just told me you plan to do with your processor, you should be buying a 3.0C and an Abit IC7. Athlons are great at what they do, but they are great at one thing at a time. You would be much, much happier with a 2.8C or a 3.0C, if you are planning on doing two cpu-intensive tasks at the same time, like you just said you would like to be able to do.

 

[irenealan]

Yes but most of the time I am just downloading, extracting and maybe writing and compiling Java at the same time... I rarely do encoding as I mentioned maybe twice in a month... do I still need a P4? Is a AMD really that bad in running multiple programs at the same time? That's why I was thinking if a A64 would help and it would be good for future too? Sorry I don't know much but just want to see what you guys think... thanks...

 

[myocardia]

No, I must have misread what you said the first time. Mine can do 10 things at once, as long as only one of them is cpu-intensive. But, if you try to do 2 cpu-intensive things with an Athlon, both will suffer horribly as far as speed is concerned. For encoding video once or twice a month, any of the mobile Bartons or any of the A64 chips will be fine for you.

 

[Jeff7181]

I agree with pretty much everything myocardia has told you so far =)

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I agree with pretty much everything myocardia has told you so far =)

There's a first time for everything.

 

[Jeff7181]

Well actually... I wouldn't say the speed suffers horribly... but that's relative =) Depends what you consider suffering and what you consider horribly

 

[irenealan]

I wonder if when I burn .mpg file to VCD, Nero would do some processing then start burning... is that consider as encoding also? If so then that's would a P4 would be better?

Based on your comments it seems the A64 won't give much advantage over a Athlon Mobile... what I meant is I was hoping that I can get a A64 and would be comparable to a P4. But it seems that not... Sorry if I offended any A64 owners but I was so attracked by the 64 bit aspect of the chip that the Window 64 would run faster then all 32 bit chip but it seems that the P4 still beats it... is the P4 really give that much an edge over the A64?

In budget wise the P4 is better than the A64 I guess... but does any of you who own a P4 and A64 tell me what's your experience between the two? Thanks!

 

[Jeff7181]

I think what you're talking about is technically called transcoding, but it doesn't matter... the P4 is better at any kind of media work because it's architecture is more suited to that type of processing. How much better? I can encode a DVD using divx with 2 passes and bring it down to a 700 MB file in about 2 and a half hours, including ripping and setting up the encoder. A P4 is about 30% faster, so it could probably shave off about 40 or 45 minutes from that the way I encode. If you're only doing 2-3 per month, I'd go with an AMD processor because it'll be better suited for all your programming and compiling needs.
Another advantage of the P4 is Hyper-Threading, which will allow you to encode while you compile and they will both finish faster than if you encoded and compiled with an AMD processor.

As far as chosing between a mobile Athlon XP and an Athlon-64, the main factor will be cost... an Athlon-64 will be about $100-150 more after you get a motherboard for it as well, but it's strong points are the same as an Athlon XP. The only difference is the mobile Athlon XP will overclock to 2.4 Ghz at least, and you'd have to get a 2.2 Ghz Athlon-64 to match it's performance, and then even sometimes it will fall short purely because of the 200 Mhz difference. The Athlon-64 is also a little better at media work than the Athlon XP, and the difference will only be more noticeable using a 64-bit OS and 64-bit applications.

 

[irenealan]

Thanks Jeff that's very good information... now I understand that it seems whenever I tried to burn video, no matter decrypting a dvd, encoding it and changing a AVI file to a VCD or DVD format or even burning a mpg file to VCD, a P4 would outperform the Athlon or even A64...

currently I am using a P4 2.0 to compile and run Java but I think it's at ok speed so I wonder how much of a gain if I upgrade to a Athlon or A64 instead of a P4 2.8c... maybe in seconds that I won't even notice! But the encoding and multiprocess advantage from P4 would sure be something noticeable...

then now I wonder why most people here get the Athlon instead of P4, other than the price... actually the A64 is much more expensive then the P4... why would people get an A64... can some A64 ownder tell me what you are gaining over a P4? Is the 64 bit feature really that attractive... it looks good to me =)

also an overclocked Athlon @ 2.4 ghz would be faster in some cases than a A64 3400+ since the 3400+ runs at 2.2 ghz... but can you oc a A64? is it not great for oc? If it can be OC, usually to what speed it will go up to? Thanks.

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I think what you're talking about is technically called transcoding, but it doesn't matter... the P4 is better at any kind of media work because it's architecture is more suited to that type of processing. How much better? I can encode a DVD using divx with 2 passes and bring it down to a 700 MB file in about 2 and a half hours, including ripping and setting up the encoder. A P4 is about 30% faster, so it could probably shave off about 40 or 45 minutes from that the way I encode. If you're only doing 2-3 per month, I'd go with an AMD processor because it'll be better suited for all your programming and compiling needs.
Another advantage of the P4 is Hyper-Threading, which will allow you to encode while you compile and they will both finish faster than if you encoded and compiled with an AMD processor.

As far as chosing between a mobile Athlon XP and an Athlon-64, the main factor will be cost... an Athlon-64 will be about $100-150 more after you get a motherboard for it as well, but it's strong points are the same as an Athlon XP. The only difference is the mobile Athlon XP will overclock to 2.4 Ghz at least, and you'd have to get a 2.2 Ghz Athlon-64 to match it's performance, and then even sometimes it will fall short purely because of the 200 Mhz difference. The Athlon-64 is also a little better at media work than the Athlon XP, and the difference will only be more noticeable using a 64-bit OS and 64-bit applications.

 

[Jeff7181]

Current Athlon-64 motherboards don't allow much headroom for overclocking because I guess none have both an AGP and PCI lock, and the multiplier is locked, so the only method for overclocking is by using the FSB, and when you raise it so high, your AGP or PCI speed is out of spec and causes instability.

If you do a lot of compiling, and want to do other things at the same time, I'd suggest a Pentium 4 simply because Hyper-Threading allows you to do more work simultaneously.

One reason people chose the A64 over Pentium 4's is because gaming performance is slightly better with an A64... the A64 being the ONLY CPU at stock speeds that gets over 100 frames per second in the Unreal Tournament 2003 botchmatch benchmark. (someone might call me on that... I'm not sure if the Extreme Edition Pentium 4 averages over 100 frames per second... if it does, I stand corrected, but who cares, it costs over $800 ) In all honesty, you won't notice the difference between 95 frames per second or 105 frames per second... but... that 10% difference is enough to chose say, a $223 A64 3000+ over a $219 P4C 3.0.

I think the reason people buy Mobile XP2500's (myself included) is the performance for the money after overclocking. I paid $98 for mine, and it's running at 2.4 Ghz right now on 1.65 volts (default for a desktop Athlon XP). Intel just doesn't offer a $100 processor that can come anywhere close to the performance you get from a $100 Mobile Athlon XP. When you get up near the $200 range, the P4's price/performance ratio is much closer to that of an Athlon XP or Athlon-64. Sure you can get a P4C 2.8 for less than $200 and overclock it to 3.5 Ghz or higher... but how much performance do you gain over an Athlon XP at 2.4 Ghz? Not a whole lot... not $75-100 worth anyway... in my humble opinion.
I'm on a tight budget usually, and I'm primarily a gamer, and a $100 processor that performs better than 95% of processors at their stock speeds just makes sense. Anything else would be wasting money in my opinion. I encode video a few times a month, if that often, and I don't mind waiting two and a half hours for it to finish... I spend at least that much time here on the forums every day, and setting the priority of the encoding task to low allows me to browse the web and listen to music without interruption and with no slowdown.

Basically... I bought a Mobile Athlon XP because it made sense for me... based on your intended uses, a P4 might better fit your multi-tasking needs.

 

[irenealan]

Very good analysis there Jeff, really thanks for your help. I keep struggling in between two systems and don't know what to choose... based on what you said I think it makes sense to get the Mobile Athlon if I am in tight budget but I don't know mind putting another $100 for a better performance processor...

It seems that based on what you said after oc, both the Mobile Athlon 2600+ and P4 2.8c would perform about the same in processing since there speed would be pretty comparable to each other... but P4 would win over in HyperThreading... is HyperThreading really speed up processing much faster? I take your advise that if I get a Mobile Athlon, I can set the encoding to low priority so that I can compile, play game or download without any interference... but would the Mobile Athlon be good to handle compile, download, extract, playing music, all at the same time... cuz you know in a normal day I will be working, while listening to music and download files or extract them all at the same time... I would like to sit to work then do the download and extract afterward... this would waste alot of time... but these aren't really processor intensive jobs... rather I think these need a lot of Hard Disk speed, so would getting a P4 in this case would still save me a lot of time from the Mobile Athlon... or the Mobile Athlon would just perform all these tasks at the same time just fine as the P4?

Thanks again Jeff for your great help!

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Current Athlon-64 motherboards don't allow much headroom for overclocking because I guess none have both an AGP and PCI lock, and the multiplier is locked, so the only method for overclocking is by using the FSB, and when you raise it so high, your AGP or PCI speed is out of spec and causes instability.

If you do a lot of compiling, and want to do other things at the same time, I'd suggest a Pentium 4 simply because Hyper-Threading allows you to do more work simultaneously.

One reason people chose the A64 over Pentium 4's is because gaming performance is slightly better with an A64... the A64 being the ONLY CPU at stock speeds that gets over 100 frames per second in the Unreal Tournament 2003 botchmatch benchmark. (someone might call me on that... I'm not sure if the Extreme Edition Pentium 4 averages over 100 frames per second... if it does, I stand corrected, but who cares, it costs over $800 ) In all honesty, you won't notice the difference between 95 frames per second or 105 frames per second... but... that 10% difference is enough to chose say, a $223 A64 3000+ over a $219 P4C 3.0.

I think the reason people buy Mobile XP2500's (myself included) is the performance for the money after overclocking. I paid $98 for mine, and it's running at 2.4 Ghz right now on 1.65 volts (default for a desktop Athlon XP). Intel just doesn't offer a $100 processor that can come anywhere close to the performance you get from a $100 Mobile Athlon XP. When you get up near the $200 range, the P4's price/performance ratio is much closer to that of an Athlon XP or Athlon-64. Sure you can get a P4C 2.8 for less than $200 and overclock it to 3.5 Ghz or higher... but how much performance do you gain over an Athlon XP at 2.4 Ghz? Not a whole lot... not $75-100 worth anyway... in my humble opinion.
I'm on a tight budget usually, and I'm primarily a gamer, and a $100 processor that performs better than 95% of processors at their stock speeds just makes sense. Anything else would be wasting money in my opinion. I encode video a few times a month, if that often, and I don't mind waiting two and a half hours for it to finish... I spend at least that much time here on the forums every day, and setting the priority of the encoding task to low allows me to browse the web and listen to music without interruption and with no slowdown.

Basically... I bought a Mobile Athlon XP because it made sense for me... based on your intended uses, a P4 might better fit your multi-tasking needs.

 

[Jeff7181]

You can set the encoding process to low and play a game, or do whatever, but the foreground process will use ALL the CPU time it needs... if it needs 100% it'll use 100% and the low priority process will basically sit there idle.
If you were compiling, downloading, extracting, and listening to music all at the same time, depending on the length of time it takes you to do each of those tasks separately, either a P4 or an Athlon would work fine. Downloading and listening to music aren't very CPU intensive tasks... between the both of them you'd probably see no more than 5% CPU usage. Compiling is obviously very CPU intensive... and extracting CAN be CPU intensive. If I remember correctly, Athlon-64's are slightly faster at extracting compressed files than Pentium 4's, and Pentium 4's are slightly faster at creating a compressed file.

The reason I said the length of time it takes you to do each task separately matters is because if it takes you 5 minutes to compile something, and takes you 30 seconds to extract a file... you're not going to notice much difference... you're talking about 1 or 2 minutes difference here. If it takes you an hour to compile something, and you wanted to encode video at the same time, a P4 would definately be better.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you MUST do two CPU intensive things at once, go with a P4.
If you can kinda trade off... like... compile something while you browse the web, listen to music, and download a file... then when it's done compiling, encode a video while you brose the web, listen to music, and download a file... an AMD processor would be the way I'd go considering you'd save around 50% on the price of the CPU.

It seems that based on what you said after oc, both the Mobile Athlon 2600+ and P4 2.8c would perform about the same in processing since there speed would be pretty comparable to each other

That's sorta what I'm saying. An Athlon XP @ 2.4 Ghz would be much better for your compiling tasks. But again, like I said, if you must multi-task, the 2.8C will finish encoding and compiling (running at the same time) before the Athlon XP would (running at the same time, or one after the other).

 

[Jeff7181]

On a side note... each processor is very fast, and I doubt you'll be disappointed with either one you chose. The only questions are which one would be marginally better for your use, and are you willing to pay more money for marginally better performance?

If you only encode 2-3 movie a month, is it worth another $100 to finish encoding 30% faster, but have your daily compiling tasks take maybe 10-20% longer?

*EDIT* Another side note, lol... my 2.4 Ghz Athlon XP runs SETI@Home 24/7... CPU usage is constantly at 100%, but I have the process set to low priority... during the day here I browse the web, listen to music, download files, write e-mail and letters, and occasionally (like today) I do some tech support for a friend's computer business, and sometimes I need to do a remote assistance session. My SETI WU's always complete in 2 hours, give or take 10-15 minutes depending on the WU it's currently working on. So light multi-tasking like what I do is no challange for an AMD processor.

 

[irenealan]

That's again more detail information I got... thanks again Jeff!

Based on what you said, I am thinking back and forward on the A64, P4 or Mobile Athlon again... I think some of your examples apply to my case... but I don't compile codes for more than 5 - 10 minutes... I compile Java and run the web app on a tomcat server when I work from home... but I don't really do that everyday... only once in a day or two if I decided to do something for work...

But for sure I have intensive use of file transferring or downloading... since I download files from my company through VPN and also download Anime clips from newsgroup... I leave my machine on everyday to have the newsgroup program download posts or files... then at night when I come back... I mostly will browse the posts downloaded and see if there's any new files to download and at the same time extract the the downloaded files... while the system continues to download and extract files, I will surf on web... at sometimes transcode the extracted AVI files to VCD or DVD format so I can burn and watch them on my TV.... that's basically what I usually do: download files, extract them, transcode them, burn them, surf and listen music from the web... these are the maximum number of tasks I may do at the same time but it's not necessary that I transcode video every night... but for sure I would download, extract, burn files and suft web every night...

Once in two or three days, I may logon to my company through VPN to work on my codes... that's when I will do compiling, downloading, extracting or maybe burning at the same time... but I don't necessary have to do the transcoding at the same time since I may stop any transcoding on the night I work on my company tasks... or I may simply do what you suggested just put the transcoding to the lowest priority at all time... if I do that, should I still get a P4 or a AMD is good enough for me?

Also is a P4 really that powerful in multitasking? like if I transcoding or encoding a video, compile Java and surf web at the same time, I won't experience any delay or system hang when browsing webpages? If so then P4 is pretty impressive as I experienced most machines would just run and hang for a few sec, run and hang for a few sec if I do two Processor intensive job at the same time...

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
On a side note... each processor is very fast, and I doubt you'll be disappointed with either one you chose. The only questions are which one would be marginally better for your use, and are you willing to pay more money for marginally better performance?

If you only encode 2-3 movie a month, is it worth another $100 to finish encoding 30% faster, but have your daily compiling tasks take maybe 10-20% longer?

*EDIT* Another side note, lol... my 2.4 Ghz Athlon XP runs SETI@Home 24/7... CPU usage is constantly at 100%, but I have the process set to low priority... during the day here I browse the web, listen to music, download files, write e-mail and letters, and occasionally (like today) I do some tech support for a friend's computer business, and sometimes I need to do a remote assistance session. My SETI WU's always complete in 2 hours, give or take 10-15 minutes depending on the WU it's currently working on. So light multi-tasking like what I do is no challange for an AMD processor.

 

[Jeff7181]

The P4's multi-tasking strength comes from Hyper Threading. The benefit of Hyper Threading is most apparent when multi-tasking with two applications that are very CPU dependant. The exception to that is if a program is multi-threaded (designed for Hypter-Threading, or to use multiple processors).
X-bit Labs did a test in one of their reviews that showed multi-tasking performance, and the only area that the P4 was the clear dominator was when running a virus scan with Norton in the background while doing other things. The rest of the time it was pretty even... the P4 having a slight advantage... but again, in my opinion, not a big enough advantage to justify spending twice the amount of money.
Athlons are perfectly capable of multi-tasking... for the most part they're just as capable as a Pentium 4, but there are those circumstances, such as the Norton Anti-Virus scan I mentioned, that the P4's Hyper Threading gives the Pentium 4 a clear advantage.
So again, we're back to what I've told many people, your CPU selection should depend on two things, your intended use and the size of your wallet.

 

[irenealan]

I don't run Virus Scan, although it's dangeous... it just used out too much resources... I would uninstall the software even if the system comes with it pre-installed...

also I may try not to encode and compile at the same time... if I do that then I should not have problem even with a Mobile Athlon to download file, extract file, burn dvd, surf web and compile all at same time right? Earlier I thought that the P4 would have much performance difference from the Mobile Athlon since I am doing 5 different tasks at the same time (and these aren't simple tasks like playing mp3s)... but based on what you said... the Mobile Athlon performed much the same as P4 in most case except Virus Scan... so the Hyper Thread aspect of the P4 isn't really that much special then... the Mobile Athlon can handle the same too!

But I am still skeptical of the clock speed... it seems that the most I can OC a Mobile Athlon is @ 2.5 while I may OC a P4 2.8c to 3.5 so there's a gig of difference there right?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: irenealan
I don't run Virus Scan, although it's dangeous... it just used out too much resources... I would uninstall the software even if the system comes with it pre-installed...

also I may try not to encode and compile at the same time... if I do that then I should not have problem even with a Mobile Athlon to download file, extract file, burn dvd, surf web and compile all at same time right? Earlier I thought that the P4 would have much performance difference from the Mobile Athlon since I am doing 5 different tasks at the same time (and these aren't simple tasks like playing mp3s)... but based on what you said... the Mobile Athlon performed much the same as P4 in most case except Virus Scan... so the Hyper Thread aspect of the P4 isn't really that much special then... the Mobile Athlon can handle the same too!

But I am still skeptical of the clock speed... it seems that the most I can OC a Mobile Athlon is @ 2.5 while I may OC a P4 2.8c to 3.5 so there's a gig of difference there right?

It's not the number of tasks, it's the amount of CPU time each task needs. You can run 20 tasks at the same time if each only requires <5% CPU time and not experience any slowdowns.

Here is the X-bit Labs article I was talking about... this page in particular shows multi-tasking performance.

*EDIT* Keep in mind that the XP3200 shown there is a good 200-300 Mhz slower than you'll be able to get out of a Mobile Athlon XP

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: irenealan
I don't run Virus Scan, although it's dangeous... it just used out too much resources... I would uninstall the software even if the system comes with it pre-installed...

also I may try not to encode and compile at the same time... if I do that then I should not have problem even with a Mobile Athlon to download file, extract file, burn dvd, surf web and compile all at same time right? Earlier I thought that the P4 would have much performance difference from the Mobile Athlon since I am doing 5 different tasks at the same time (and these aren't simple tasks like playing mp3s)... but based on what you said... the Mobile Athlon performed much the same as P4 in most case except Virus Scan... so the Hyper Thread aspect of the P4 isn't really that much special then... the Mobile Athlon can handle the same too!

But I am still skeptical of the clock speed... it seems that the most I can OC a Mobile Athlon is @ 2.5 while I may OC a P4 2.8c to 3.5 so there's a gig of difference there right?

It's not the number of tasks, it's the amount of CPU time each task needs. You can run 20 tasks at the same time if each only requires <5% CPU time and not experience any slowdowns.

Here is the X-bit Labs article I was talking about... this page in particular shows multi-tasking performance.

*EDIT* Keep in mind that the XP3200 shown there is a good 200-300 Mhz slower than you'll be able to get out of a Mobile Athlon XP

Yeah, and also know that a Barton that's running at 2.5ghz is what would be called a 3600 and at 2.6ghz would be called a 3700, if I remember correctly. I don't have Sandra, but I may download it once I get my 2600, just to check and make sure what "she" calls a Barton at 12x210 and 12.5x210.