Athlon 64 3400+ review and Memory

[ErikaeanLogic]

Originally posted by: stardust
Thank for your info!
I do very basic multimedia and intermediate photoshoping with files going as big as 150-200mb. I notice a considerable lag when using photoshop with lots of different effects and my current P4 @ 3.4 ghz, would the 64 3200+ be even slower?

hi,

Is the rig in your sig the one you are talking about upgrading? Because if it is, you need some more memory, in a bad way! 512MB (assuming this is what you're running on) is hardly adequate for anything more than gaming. I would say that 1GB is the bare minimum for anybody using graphics apps, 2GB is what I use since I use my comp for a digital darkroom, although my images are never more than 10MB. Also, where is your swap file? I believe that the best way to run a swap file is on another physical harddisk on its own partition. With 2GB of RAM I don't even run a swap file anymore, but with 1GB I had a 3GB partition on a harddrive other than my system-files harddrive and assigned that to be my swap file partition. Why did I do this? because of speed! Paging files are the leading contributor to drive fragmentation; every time you boot, however, the seperate page file partition can overwrite itself and will not interfere with the execution of system/app commands.

Just a thought

 

[pelikan]

I think HT is probably an important time saving feature for those who's computing will take advantage of it.

Since my interest is bang for the buck gaming performance my next upgrade will be an A64.

 

[edmundoab]

Originally posted by: pelikan
I think HT is probably an important time saving feature for those who's computing will take advantage of it.

Since my interest is bang for the buck gaming performance my next upgrade will be an A64.

yeah, buy something to cater your needs rather then get everything just for the sake of getting the latest technology.

 

[RussianSensation]

I think that most people who have p4 with HT and have another program in the background like SETI or Folding or something like that keep it on while playing a video game. I would just like to see some benchmarks if someone wants to do latest games + Seti and someone who has athlon does the same and we compare it here.

Also, I mean i can understand the argument for Athlon beating p4 in games (thats its beauty in my eyes) however I dont recall any website EVER concentrating on game perfomance at 1600x1200 .... cause thats what I play and i definately dont recall process video game comparison with 1600x1200 4AA/8AF...mainly because in this situation Athlon 1600+ = Athlon 64 = P4 1.6 = P4 3.6 ... because you are videocard limited so in my eyes there is no point in getting 30-100 extra frames at 640 x 480 or 800x600 because those are pathetic resolutions for anyone who likes eye candy.

My other point is that getting 80 or 100 frames or anything above 60 is arguably unnoticable in a fast-paced games. Yes Athlon 64, based on the low resolution criteria, and so on is faster than p4; I completely agree. However, when the next generation games come I know that a 2.0ghz p4 or Athlon 1600+ with NV40 and/or RV420 will make 3.4 prescott with Radeon 8500 look weak in comparison. I know CPU performance matters for videogames. But in high resolutions with eye candy videocard is the most important component so always remember that.

lets just all be happy lol

 

[stardust]

Originally posted by: ErikaeanLogic

Originally posted by: stardust
Thank for your info!
I do very basic multimedia and intermediate photoshoping with files going as big as 150-200mb. I notice a considerable lag when using photoshop with lots of different effects and my current P4 @ 3.4 ghz, would the 64 3200+ be even slower?

hi,

Is the rig in your sig the one you are talking about upgrading? Because if it is, you need some more memory, in a bad way! 512MB (assuming this is what you're running on) is hardly adequate for anything more than gaming. I would say that 1GB is the bare minimum for anybody using graphics apps, 2GB is what I use since I use my comp for a digital darkroom, although my images are never more than 10MB. Also, where is your swap file? I believe that the best way to run a swap file is on another physical harddisk on its own partition. With 2GB of RAM I don't even run a swap file anymore, but with 1GB I had a 3GB partition on a harddrive other than my system-files harddrive and assigned that to be my swap file partition. Why did I do this? because of speed! Paging files are the leading contributor to drive fragmentation; every time you boot, however, the seperate page file partition can overwrite itself and will not interfere with the execution of system/app commands.

Just a thought

I have yet to see my system use all 512mb of memory... if you looked at my rig u'll see that my memory is pretty darn expensive.. it'll be a while before I can afford another 2 sticks of those. The only time i came close to running 512mb was during photoshop, and I didn't mind waiting a bit for that. I will get 1gb eventually though, 64-bit windows requires it.

About HT, yes it is somewhat off topic from my original memory discussion and through my experience, i still lag significantly when having 2 programs running at once. I doubt my harddrive has anything to do with this cuz its running the fastest possible RAID.

ANYWAY, in games, what advatages does less latency give you. Sure i've heard low latency is a gamer's best friend, but what does it actually do? If athlon's (64) performance boost over current intels is somewhat related to that integrated memory controller, then I'm sure memory plays a big deal in this. For more info read the ATI pres interview at FiringSquad.

 

[stardust]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
I think that most people who have p4 with HT and have another program in the background like SETI or Folding or something like that keep it on while playing a video game. I would just like to see some benchmarks if someone wants to do latest games + Seti and someone who has athlon does the same and we compare it here.

Also, I mean i can understand the argument for Athlon beating p4 in games (thats its beauty in my eyes) however I dont recall any website EVER concentrating on game perfomance at 1600x1200 .... cause thats what I play and i definately dont recall process video game comparison with 1600x1200 4AA/8AF...mainly because in this situation Athlon 1600+ = Athlon 64 = P4 1.6 = P4 3.6 ... because you are videocard limited so in my eyes there is no point in getting 30-100 extra frames at 640 x 480 or 800x600 because those are pathetic resolutions for anyone who likes eye candy.

My other point is that getting 80 or 100 frames or anything above 60 is arguably unnoticable in a fast-paced games. Yes Athlon 64, based on the low resolution criteria, and so on is faster than p4; I completely agree. However, when the next generation games come I know that a 2.0ghz p4 or Athlon 1600+ with NV40 and/or RV420 will make 3.4 prescott with Radeon 8500 look weak in comparison. I know CPU performance matters for videogames. But in high resolutions with eye candy videocard is the most important component so always remember that.

lets just all be happy lol

I think it the CPU doesn't have much to do with running a higher res...performance ratios should be similar. 1024x768 and 1280x1024 are perfect benchmarking resolutions for a CPU review. Remember, this isn't a graphics card here.

 

[Necrolezbeast]

Hey duvie...not meaning to ask a dumb/mean question, I would really like to know....in benchmarks you have done while multitasking while using SETI or any other cpu intensive application, have you been running 2 instances of it? I think that would be an accurate test, as it only uses 50% of the cpu otherwise, and we all know HT doesn't improve anything by 50% and the fact that it isn't really 2 cpu's doing the work so it shouldn't be treated as if it were.... I'm not trying to get you mad or anything, I would just like to know if that is how you have been doing it, and if not what the differences would then be? And I would like to add, I can play BF1942/DC @ 4x AA and 8x AF without a noticable drop in performance with SETI running, I have a 2500+ @ 2ghz(limited by RAM, and I got screwed out of $200 of RAM by marmaduke, yipee), 512mb RAM, and 9800pro...

 

[joe2004]

I think the current crop of motherboards are the limiting factor; most have not achieved over 230 FSB.

Not true. Asus K8V Deluxe can make 238-240. The problem is memory controller on the CPU that cannot handle PC 3200 and better memory at those levels. You have to use 5:3. Nevertheless it is possible, with A64-3400+ to get 2.5 GHz and more on air which I think beat the hell out of anything Intel has to offer.

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: joe2004

I think the current crop of motherboards are the limiting factor; most have not achieved over 230 FSB.

Not true. Asus K8V Deluxe can make 238-240. The problem is memory controller on the CPU that cannot handle PC 3200 and better memory at those levels. You have to use 5:3. Nevertheless it is possible, with A64-3400+ to get 2.5 GHz and more on air which I think beat the hell out of anything Intel has to offer.

People have the K8V over 260 MHz 1:1 with the tightest memory timings. A vdimm mod was involved, of course. The NF3 has gone even higher. There is no problem with the memory controller.

 

[joe2004]

People have the K8V over 260 MHz 1:1 with the tightest memory timings. A vdimm mod was involved, of course.

Well, it has to be something else than that. I can set memory much slower but there is no way I can get over 240 no matter what memory does. I'd like to see those 260+ scores and what exactly was used. I doubt it was air cooling.
By the way 1:1 in K8V BIOS means PC 1600. Not attractive to me at all.
By the way #2: It is not known to me there exist any memory that can do 520 MHz at tight timings, no matter what voltage is used. I'd like to see that too.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: stardust

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
I think that most people who have p4 with HT and have another program in the background like SETI or Folding or something like that keep it on while playing a video game. I would just like to see some benchmarks if someone wants to do latest games + Seti and someone who has athlon does the same and we compare it here.

Also, I mean i can understand the argument for Athlon beating p4 in games (thats its beauty in my eyes) however I dont recall any website EVER concentrating on game perfomance at 1600x1200 .... cause thats what I play and i definately dont recall process video game comparison with 1600x1200 4AA/8AF...mainly because in this situation Athlon 1600+ = Athlon 64 = P4 1.6 = P4 3.6 ... because you are videocard limited so in my eyes there is no point in getting 30-100 extra frames at 640 x 480 or 800x600 because those are pathetic resolutions for anyone who likes eye candy.

My other point is that getting 80 or 100 frames or anything above 60 is arguably unnoticable in a fast-paced games. Yes Athlon 64, based on the low resolution criteria, and so on is faster than p4; I completely agree. However, when the next generation games come I know that a 2.0ghz p4 or Athlon 1600+ with NV40 and/or RV420 will make 3.4 prescott with Radeon 8500 look weak in comparison. I know CPU performance matters for videogames. But in high resolutions with eye candy videocard is the most important component so always remember that.

lets just all be happy lol

I think it the CPU doesn't have much to do with running a higher res...performance ratios should be similar. 1024x768 and 1280x1024 are perfect benchmarking resolutions for a CPU review. Remember, this isn't a graphics card here.

Oh I completely agree with you. What I was trying to get across is the fact that a lot of people play at 1600x1200 and on top of that use anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. I remember once reading an article where at 1600x1200 all cpus from 1700+ to 3000+ gave identical result in games (+/-2 frames per second) But these type of reviews are very rare. At lower resolutions cpu power matters no doubt about it. But if your videocard allows for higher and better eye candy why not utilize its capability? after all why buy a $300 videocard then.... then in these highly visually intensive scenarios cpu speed is no longer important.

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
I think that most people who have p4 with HT and have another program in the background like SETI or Folding or something like that keep it on while playing a video game. I would just like to see some benchmarks if someone wants to do latest games + Seti and someone who has athlon does the same and we compare it here.

Also, I mean i can understand the argument for Athlon beating p4 in games (thats its beauty in my eyes) however I dont recall any website EVER concentrating on game perfomance at 1600x1200 .... cause thats what I play and i definately dont recall process video game comparison with 1600x1200 4AA/8AF...mainly because in this situation Athlon 1600+ = Athlon 64 = P4 1.6 = P4 3.6 ... because you are videocard limited so in my eyes there is no point in getting 30-100 extra frames at 640 x 480 or 800x600 because those are pathetic resolutions for anyone who likes eye candy.

My other point is that getting 80 or 100 frames or anything above 60 is arguably unnoticable in a fast-paced games. Yes Athlon 64, based on the low resolution criteria, and so on is faster than p4; I completely agree. However, when the next generation games come I know that a 2.0ghz p4 or Athlon 1600+ with NV40 and/or RV420 will make 3.4 prescott with Radeon 8500 look weak in comparison. I know CPU performance matters for videogames. But in high resolutions with eye candy videocard is the most important component so always remember that.

lets just all be happy lol

I have already done those tests. I run MP2 and COD at 4XAA and 8XAF with my 9700Pro while I am folding in the background. I see absolutly no framerate loss and Folding is reduced by a mear 30sec to a min per frame (normally the frames that I have been getting take less than 9min). the same test (granted it was on a 3200) on the Athlon rig neted a loss of 5-6min a frame (normally taking 15min a frame) and reduced framerates. The reduced framerates were not that significant but with the Folding client it will "throttle" per se if the computer needs more processor for apps running in the fore ground. The same test was done on a P4 2.26 and a P4 2.4B and both showed the same results as the Athlon. I not sure what it would take for the "Fanboys" to just admit that HT actually does have real life advantages and get off their high horse. I was an AMD user but when the P4C's came out and I could see the advantages I had to have one. I am glad I made the switch. It has acctually saved me some money since this is the first time in many years that I have gone more than 6 months w/o changing CPU's. I think it will be atleast another 6 months before my system will need to be upgraded. (Abit IC-7G 2.4C @ 275 FSB 1:1 (300fsb stable w 5:4))

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: joe2004

People have the K8V over 260 MHz 1:1 with the tightest memory timings. A vdimm mod was involved, of course.

Well, it has to be something else than that. I can set memory much slower but there is no way I can get over 240 no matter what memory does. I'd like to see those 260+ scores and what exactly was used. I doubt it was air cooling.
By the way 1:1 in K8V BIOS means PC 1600. Not attractive to me at all.
By the way #2: It is not known to me there exist any memory that can do 520 MHz at tight timings, no matter what voltage is used. I'd like to see that too.

Sounds like you haven't visited xtremesystems forums in awhile.

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: joe2004

People have the K8V over 260 MHz 1:1 with the tightest memory timings. A vdimm mod was involved, of course.

Well, it has to be something else than that. I can set memory much slower but there is no way I can get over 240 no matter what memory does. I'd like to see those 260+ scores and what exactly was used. I doubt it was air cooling.
By the way 1:1 in K8V BIOS means PC 1600. Not attractive to me at all.
[By the way #2: It is not known to me there exist any memory that can do 520 MHz at tight timings, no matter what voltage is used. I'd like to see that too.

You obviously have not seen or heard of the OCZ Gold stuff.

 

[joe2004]

You obviously have not seen or heard of the OCZ Gold stuff.

Pal, that memory runs at 2.5-4-4-7 which is anything but tight. Tight is 2-2-2-5 or 2-2-2-6 or even 2-3-2-5, 2-3-2-6, which this memory wont do at 520 MHz.

As far as references to xtremesystems, please be more specific, which post, which thread. It is true I don't read there much since it is mostly fairly tales anyway.

I know for a fact that A64 3400+ can run 2.5 GHz on air, I have seen it. I am sure it can run higher on some type of extreme cooling. All the current memory on the other hand cannot run 500 MHz at 2-2-2-6, such a memory does not exists yet. Some people are lucky to get some Winbond BH-5 that can do 470-480 MHz tight under 3.0+ V but with that kind of stress I am not sure it can last long or be stable.
The memory like GEil and OCZ that runs 500+ MHz, and I have some Geil PC 4200 myself, does that at relaxed timings which impedes performance in every benchmark and it is not worth money for any AMD system.

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: joe2004

You obviously have not seen or heard of the OCZ Gold stuff.

Pal, that memory runs at 2.5-4-4-7 which is anything but tight. Tight is 2-2-2-5 or 2-2-2-6 or even 2-3-2-5, 2-3-2-6, which this memory wont do at 520 MHz.

As far as references to xtremesystems, please be more specific, which post, which thread. It is true I don't read there much since it is mostly fairly tales anyway.

I know for a fact that A64 3400+ can run 2.5 GHz on air, I have seen it. I am sure it can run higher on some type of extreme cooling. All the current memory on the other hand cannot run 500 MHz at 2-2-2-6, such a memory does not exists yet. Some people are lucky to get some Winbond BH-5 that can do 470-480 MHz tight under 3.0+ V but with that kind of stress I am not sure it can last long or be stable.
The memory like GEil and OCZ that runs 500+ MHz, and I have some Geil PC 4200 myself, does that at relaxed timings which impedes performance in every benchmark and it is not worth money for any AMD system.

I think a little research would help fill out your knowledge of the people at xtremesystems.org and the capabilities of BH-5 under lots of volts.

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: joe2004

You obviously have not seen or heard of the OCZ Gold stuff.

Pal, that memory runs at 2.5-4-4-7 which is anything but tight. Tight is 2-2-2-5 or 2-2-2-6 or even 2-3-2-5, 2-3-2-6, which this memory wont do at 520 MHz.

As far as references to xtremesystems, please be more specific, which post, which thread. It is true I don't read there much since it is mostly fairly tales anyway.

I know for a fact that A64 3400+ can run 2.5 GHz on air, I have seen it. I am sure it can run higher on some type of extreme cooling. All the current memory on the other hand cannot run 500 MHz at 2-2-2-6, such a memory does not exists yet. Some people are lucky to get some Winbond BH-5 that can do 470-480 MHz tight under 3.0+ V but with that kind of stress I am not sure it can last long or be stable.
The memory like GEil and OCZ that runs 500+ MHz, and I have some Geil PC 4200 myself, does that at relaxed timings which impedes performance in every benchmark and it is not worth money for any AMD system.

I guess I have special Gold than since I can do 250FSB at 2-2-2-6. At 275 I am limited to 2.5-3-3-7. As far as benchmarks I will take the higher FSB any day of the week over faster timings at a slower FSB.

 

[joe2004]

I think a little research would help fill out your knowledge of the people at xtremesystems.org and the capabilities of BH-5 under lots of volts.

Well, I think when you start the talk you should do the walk. Reference to a web domain without any specific page means nothing.
By the way three quarters of the memory I have, some 4 gigabytes is BH-5 and it is excellent but no any magic as you suggest.

I guess I have special Gold than since I can do 250FSB at 2-2-2-6.

I can asure you that you do have, since that is not what OCZ claims on their web site, meaning it is a luck of draw.

 

[joe2004]

By the way:
If processor is running at 260 x 10 = 2.6 GHz that processor is not air cooled because A64 3200+ cannot do that on air.
If the processor is running on 260 x some other multiplier (less than 10) than the memory, which is tied to the processor frequency is not running at 520 MHz but at some lower frequency.
For example assuming 2:1 for Memory:CPU and 9 multiplier with 260, meaning 260x9=2.34 GHz then memory runs at 468 MHz which some really good Winbond chips can do at tight timming.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: pelikan

Originally posted by: orion7144

Originally posted by: edmundoab
..and a quick price hike

have you looked at the prices lately? A P4 2.4C and a mother board is only $240 and a barton with mb is roughly the same and doesn't even come close in performance.

\

A Barton and MB is $180. and very similar in performance.

You must be looking at expensive mobos. Try $150