Athlon 2500XP+ Barton or Athlon 2600XP+ 333FSB

[Celuvka279]

Now that AMD has both the 2500XP+ Barton and the 2600XP+ @ 333FSB, which card is the best choice? The $$ difference is like $10.00, so which one will perform a little better than the other in Gaming?

 

[nick1985]

2500 and OC it.

 

[Duvie]

In gaming the slight edge goes to the 2500+ and its 400fsb and 512kb of l2 cache to offset its smaller clock speed and whacked AMD pr rating....

If I was doing encoding, rendering, and generally raw cpu hungry things the 2600+xp will actually beat the 2500+ barton in many apps....Remember the the review of the 3000+ barton where the 2800+xp beat it in quite a few things....Speed sometimes does matter, and usually when we are talking the same chip architecture...

 

[Duvie]

I agree ocing will be better on the Barton likely but also remember at stcok the average barton system should cost a bit more since you will likley want to be running pc3200 400ddr sticks while the 2600+xp can use cheaper pc2700 stuff....

 

[Noid]

memory is NOT an issue here ...

Both chip's run 220 DC with PC3200 in my NF7-S.

The Barton will be a snappier chip.

It gave me about 400 more points in 3dMark01 and almost 900 additional points in AquaMark.

(I originally had the xp2600 (333), I did'nt even change BIOS ... I just plopped the 2500 in with the 2600's settings.)

I did have to do bridge modifications to BOTH chips though.

Currently my free Web host is not working, so you cant see my linky below ... so

The 2500 Barton week 033 I have, is running 10.5 x 215 DC = 2266Mtz with 1.85v

 

[Duvie]

Memory is an issue unless you are assumming he will be ocing.....He may just want to run stock speed and in that case pc2700 would be all he needed with the athlon 2600 xp...running pc3200 would be overkill and the athlon wouldn't gain much by using it in an asynch fashion.

It depends on the usage...Gaming will favor the barton with its added cache, 400fsb and pc3200 memory giving more bandwidth...so once again it is about memory....

Other then gaming the amd pr rating just doen't fly much....The amd chip did not advantage as much going tfrom 256kb of l2 to 512kb as its predecessor Intel did. The 400fsb probably made more of a difference. However amd in its lack of wisdom get droppig speed and in the long run the athlon chips since 2600+ started loosing their comparative value to a comparable speed of a p4 (don't give me the whiny-ass it is not rated to a P4 crap, cause I know it.).....

 

[CaptainHefe]

i thought the 2500+ still only had a 333 fsb. arent the only ones that have a 400 fsb the 3000+ and the 3200+?

 

[rgreen83]

Yes, captainhefe, the 2500+ does have 333fsb and only the 3000+ and 3200+ are available with 400 fsb. The confusing part is that there is a 11.5x166(333) 2600+ now which is actually a barton also.

 

[Montrey]

it's why the 2500+ is one of the best deals in cpus right now, you take one and clock it at 400 FSB without any multiplier changes, and *voila* you've got a 3200+. can't guarantee, of course, but I've heard that most will do it on stock voltage. of course, you're still having to use pc3200 to clock that high, but pc2700 will work fine with either processor at stock FSB. Then again, who knows, you might be able to get the pc2700 to perform at pc3200, I'm running my Kingston ValueRAM pc2100 at 180 FSB perfectly stable (it was stable at 187, but I don't like to ride the edge of crashing)

 

[Peter D]

2500+

 

[Johnbear007]

My 2500+ does 400mhz FSB with stock cooling a stock voltage