Mobile Barton 35W vs. Mobile A64 62W

[White Widow]

Well, life is about making lemonade out of lemsons, so when my friend needed some cash quick I decided to buy some of his extra hardware. It was an easy decision because I have been living a tormented life as the owner of a Centrino-based Presario X1000. I love the notebook, but it is not exactly a gaming powerhouse. Anyway, my fiend had some great components, and all I need now is a motherboard and a CPU. After browsing the forums here, I am torn between a Mobile Barton or Mobile A64 system. Here are the other components I have:

2x512MB PC3200 Mushkin BH6 2-2-2 DDR
PowerColor 9800 Pro
SilverStone 400W "Silent" PS
SB Audigy 2 ZS

So, even though I got a good price for this stuff, I still spent a fair amount. I *can* afford an A64 system, but I don;t want to unless the performance gains will be significant over the Barton system. I am definately looking to overclock as much as possible, so I'd appreciate any reecomendations about performance differences (gaming and otherwise) between an overclocked Barton ~2.5GHz and and overclocked A64. Also, I would appreciate reccomendations for a kick-ass (but not too loud!!) cooler. Under 35dB would be ideal.

Note - because the RAM uses BH6, I'm thinking I'll keep the FSB close to 200MHz to keep the best latency timings. I don;t know if this will affect the thinking about what system will be best.

So, please offer some reccomendation for:

- CPU
- Motherboard
- HSF

And share your opinion about:

- the performance differences between an OC'd Barton & A64 system for gaming AND non-gaming applications.

Being in the Centrino world for 12 months I have no first-hand experience with either of these systems. In addition to gaming, I also will be doing some video editing, encoding (audio and video), and all the other typical PC stuff. Still, gaming tasks will dominate the purpose of this machine.

 

[3LEMENT0]

OCed athlon A64 would kick ass....for gaming A64 is the way to go... how much of a gamer are you though? If not much maybe a barton @2.4/2.5Ghz and 9800pro would do well for you.....depends on your needs and budget....good luck

 

[White Widow]

Originally posted by: 3LEMENT0
... how much of a gamer are you though?

Well, none of my top 5 goals in life involve Deathmatch, CTF, or anything having to do with frames-per-second. Having said that, I enjoy gaming a lot and have been missing the high-resolution, eye-candy land that a powerful system affords.

What kinds of real-world difference are we talking about between these two systems? I don;t plan on upgrding this system anytime soon (less than 12 months) so will an A64 get me a lot more performance in games than the Barton, considering I will be using the 9800Pro?

 

[Degrador]

It'll depend a lot on which games you play - DX9 games, for instance, won't take much of a hit from lower cpu performance. They're becoming so much gpu dependant these days that it doesn't make a lot of a difference. That said, if you're not looking at upgrading the system soon, then an A64 would definitely be the way to go. Not only the performance benefit at the moment, but once windows 64-bit comes out you'll get a healthy bonus again (from 64-bit drivers), and then once 64-bit games come out, another healthy bonus.

 

[Degrador]

Incidentally, anyone got any idea on what the overclocking is like with the mobile A64s? I understand that normal ones aren't that awe inspiring, but are mobile's any different?

 

[White Widow]

Clearly for the mobile Barton 2.4GHz - 2.5GHz is a reasonable expectation. Is there a consensus about how far mobile A64 chips are able to overclock? Are there any website reviews which happend to post side-by-side data for Bartons and A64's at these clockspeeds?

 

[Zebo]

You can build the XP-M - CPU/Motherboard/HSF for less than the price of the A64 alone. Here is a realistic expectation. Surprisingly, even a 2.0 GHz AMD 64 3200+ no overclocking can convincingly beat 2.4 GHz Athlon-XP-M in games and rendering apps. They are essentailly the same performance at FPU stuff like winrar/compiling/LAME/etc so it really depends what you do.

I'm not sure if any mobos support the A64 mobile chip without mods or using some alpha bios.

 

[Illissius]

A mobile Barton at 2.4GHz performs on par at games with a P4 3.2C or A64 2800+ (1.8GHz), as you can see here. (The 2800+ isn't actually in the graphs, but it's consistently behind the 3000+ by a margin and the 2800+ would probably slot in right around there.)
And as for A64 overclocking, newer CG stepping desktop 3000+s usually go to 2.4-2.5GHz without much of a fuss. But the real kicker here is that 35W mobile A64s exist (though temporarily out of stock at newegg atm) - someone on these forums (oralpain) has one at 2.25GHz with 1.3V (!), held back by the lack of a higher FSB setting on his motherboard. One of those things could probably do 2.5GHz at stock A64 voltage. And with a 2.4GHz Barton on par with a 1.8GHz Hammer, you can probably guess what happens when the Hammer is 2.5GHz .

Athlon 64 2800+ 35W Mobile - $234
MSI K8N Neo Platinum - $137
---
$371

Athlon 64 2800+ OEM - $173
Chaintech VNF3-250 - $92 (or Abit KV8 Pro - $105)
---
$265

Athlon XP 2400+ 35W Mobile - $87 (or 2600+ 45W - $95)
Abit NF7-S - $85
---
$172

Which one of these is worth it for you is up to you. Don't know about FSB settings on the Chaintech, if they stop at 250 then the 2800+ will go to 2.25Ghz (a slightly higher overclock than old locked desktop 2500+s were doing ), otherwise it could probably go a bit higher, assuming you get a CG stepping.
As for cooling, for the XP I'd suggest a Thermalright SP-97 - $57 or SLK-947U - $40 plus a fan, an SLK-948U - $40 + fan for the A64 mobile, and either that or a Zalman CNPS7000A-(Al)Cu - $36 or $41 for the A64 non-mobile. (The Zalman is incompatible with the NF7-S, and don't know about compatibility with A64 mobiles (which lack a heatspreader) so go Thermalright to be safe, which is known to work.)

 

[Nemesis2038]

Thats a pretty big gap but lets say this.


If you plan on using a 64 bit OS in the near future then Opteron.
If you dont want to have to upgrade in 1-2 years then Opteron again.

The simple reason is this. The barton is a SOCKET A Processor and a 32 bit CPU. Its lifespan is about 1 year tops for what you seem to be. An Overclocker. We constantly upgrade. So you will have to buy the CPU and Motherboard again.

If you go the Opteron Route.
Winthin a few months to 1 year you will be running the 64 bit versions of the same appliactions which will cost you the same price. The apps in 64 bit land may run 10%-300% faster depending on what your doing. If you dont get the performance you are looking for by next year you can upgrade to a dual core opteron which will proably be clocked at 3.5-4Ghz. No motherboard to upgrade.

The speed increase one will receive when running 64 bit applications on a 64 bit OS. Yes there will be an increase as I have seen a 300% speed increased on data encryption and about 200% speed increase on file compression over 32 bit versions. Overall I would say I see an average of 30% speed improvement and that number getting slightly better as time goes on and drivers and apps mature but 30% is pretty significant. Those UT 2004 benchmarks on an Opteron are 32 bit apps running through an emulator(WOW) on a 64 bit OS. For those to run as fast as a 32 bit CPU with a 32 Bit OS is short of amazing.

I say go for the Opteron and if your on a budget then get the Semperon with an Opteron Motherboard so you wont have to buy a MOBO next year or even 2 years down the line.