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Athlon XP and 64 comparison impossible?

G

gthink

Junior Member
hi everyone,

i built myself a gaming rig a little less than two years ago and i'm looking to upgrade it. i thought it might be about time when half-life 2's recommended graphic setting all said 'medium'... i've a MSI KTV400 mobo, Athlon XP 2400, Radeon 9700pro, and 512M ram.

so i surf over to pricewatch to see what hardware is running these days i'm a little thrown. i realize athlon has always used crazy numbers instead of GHz to identify its processors, but what the heck. these new 64's don't really appear (at least on the surface) to be much faster than the my old xp2400 which runs at 2 GHz. am i undertanding correctly that, say, an althlon 64 3800 runs at 2.4 GHz and something like a 3500+ runs at 2.2?!?

with processors i normally wait for them to release a something that doubles my speed then buy a slightly older model. i'm pretty sure i was looking at 1.7-odd GHz Pentiums back then and i think they're cracking ~3.5 GHz models now. so what am i missing? are the new 64's 'apples' and the old XP's 'oranges'--are GHz no longer a valid thing to compare?

i can't open my case right now to see, but i think my xp2400 is a Slot A type and i realize its probably at the end of its lifespan. i'd get more ram, but knowing myself if i'm itching to upgrade i probably will and it'd probably be a waste to buy a stick now if a new processor/mobo are going to use something incompatible.

so whats the community's general feeling here. are the the 64's worth the money? are athlons stagnating or just confusing? or maybe just chime in with your thoughts on the market's current sweetspots. when i get home i'll have to read this buyers guide and do some more digging, but i thought i try the people first.
thanks
 
well, there was never an XP atlon in the slot A form....its a socket A i have a 2500 barton oc'ed to 2.2ghz and it runs very well, but a buddy has an athlon 64 3000 that on the surface appears to be quicker than my barton....havent done alot of testing yet....but the 64 looks promising
 
Put in an estimate of your budget... Right now a lot of people are get the Athlon64 939 pin 3500+ (winchester) and a 6800GT video card.
 
You can't compare A64 (K8) PR ratings or clock speeds to the XP (K7). An A64 2800+ (1.8 GHz), for example, smokes an XP 3200+ (2.2 I think). K8 added things like Hypertransport, an on-chip RAM controller, etc. (and now it's been successfully scaled down to a 90nm fabrication process), and so the performance isn't solely in the form of any kind of clockspeed bump.

(For the record, A64 PR ratings generally compare most closely to P4 GHz ratings, though the Intels lose the battle--especially with a 3400+ often providing comparable gaming performance to a 3.4 EE.)
 
A64s are the best bet. Don't look at their absolute clockspeed. The PR ratings are generally conservative when compared to their P4 counterparts, i.e. an A64 2800+ is in most cases as fast as or faster than a P4 2.8.
 
I went from an XP2500+ Barton which has 333FSB unlike your 2400+ which has 266.. and my A64 3200+ eats it alive! mostly in gaming, but the system is more responsive even just within windows.. excellent upgrade indeed. :thumbsup:
 
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