well, don't take my word for it. here's an easy way for anyone to bring out the amd 64's weakness.
download
RthDribl (Real Time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting demo).
open up internet explorer. mine defaults to msn homepage, and takes maybe 1 sec. to load. now run rthdribl. open up ie again, and it took about 9 sec. to load and display the msn homepage. this is on an
athlon 64 3000+ (newcastle CG rev)
dfi lanparty ut nf3-25gb
1gb kingston hyperX CL2.5
fresh install winxp sp2
nvidia chipset driver v5.10
the same sequecne on a
p4c (northwood) 3.0
865PE Neo2-FIS2R
1GB Geil Value CL2.5
w/o rthdribl: 1 sec.
while running rthdribl: less than 2 sec.
making a 20mb zip file while running rthdribl, the p4 shows no framerate drop in rhtdribl (other than the normal 2-3 fps variance), the athlon drops from 70+fps down to 15-30fps, then back up to 70+ fps once winzip is done.
downloading a file using cftp pro @ 3.7mb/s, start rthdribl, and the d/l rate drops down to 1.7mb/s on the athlon 64. the p4? no change in d/l rate.
or even running 2 copies of rthdribl at the same time. on the a64, one client varies wildly from 27-45fps. the second one varies from 19-34fps.
do the same on the the p4c, and both clients run a pretty consistend 33-35fps.
blame the athlon 64. blame windows. maybe it's the nf3 chipset (same thing happens using a chaintech vnf3 250 mb)? i don't really care. regardless, the p4 platform handles running these multiple apps much better than the a64 platform. the difference is night and day, and glaringly obvious.
try it and see for yourself. even better if you have both platforms to compare.