• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Mobile Barton vs. A64

S

snapetta

Junior Member
I've heard so many good things about the Mobile bartons with their overclockabilty. I've had my current system for almost 3 years now, and I'm looking to upgrade. I'm not a person that upgrades every 6 months, so I'd like to have this one last a few years. The CPU's that sound the most tempting to me right now are the Barton 2500+, and 2600+. Along with the A64 3000. I'm going to have this computer watercooled, so I'd like to get a good overclock out of my processor. My question is which one will most likely be able to run at the highest speed, while being stable. For some reason I've seen the 2500+ and 2600+ speeds being higher than the A64 3000 overclocking speeds. So would be best thing for me to overclock the 2600+? Just wondering, thanks.
 
Clock speed may be a little higher with the Barton core, but the A64 will be faster overall.

If you're even considering AMD you should know that faster clock speed does not necessarily = faster processor when comparing different CPU architectures.

Example:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...oc.aspx?i=2065&p=9

THe AXP 3000+ is Either at 2.1 GHz or 2.16 GHz, but it gets pretty hammered by an A64 at 2.0 GHz (the 3000+). If you check out the rest of the review, you can see that it's not a fluke. The trend continues and the 'slower' A64 beats out the AXP, quite handily in many cases.
 
You can really feel that Athlon64's are in a whole other class compared to the Mobile XPs when you use one. However, for $79 for a 2400+ with watercooling you could hit XP 3500+ speeds or higher with a good MB and will have a granularly-refined motherboard in the NF2-400U and it'll be impossible to beat for the price.

That said, 32bit apps are supposed to run a lot faster on a 64bit OS than on a 32bit OS, so there will be performance difference there as Windows XP64 matures.
 
I would say go 64-bit. The main reason? Because you said you're not the type to upgrade every 6 months but you'd like to have this for a few years. 64-bit is definitely the forward-looking choice between the two. If you get a socket 939 board (I don't know enough to recommend 939 over 754 but I'm sure others do), then you're more likely to be able to easily/cheaply upgrade the CPU in the future than if you go socket 754. If you go Socket A - well, you're not really going to ever be able to upgrade it without replacing your motherboard also.

Now if you said you wanted something cheap that performed well and you didn't mind building a new PC a year from now, then I would say go the Barton and overclock it.

Lastly, if you said you want the best performing of the 2 options, then go 64-bit. Right now on a 32-bit OS, it definitely is the better-performing of the two (unless maybe you get the 2800 which I wouldn't recommend). And once the 64-bit WinXP comes out, I'm sure you'll see even more improvement in performance.
 
There needs to be a sticky on these forums.

For gamers and there is absolutly no reason to buy mobile xp's at this point in time. It's price to performance ratio has been trumped by A64 skt 754.

Mwave.com mobo combo http://www.mwave.com/mwave/Pro...ard+Bundles+By+AMD+CPU

Free Farcry game
Retail Athlon 64 2800
Chaintech VNF3-250 nforce mobo

$209.00 total

This chip will overclock to 2500Mhz with ease which you need a 3100mhz XP to match it, good luck on that one.
 
I guess there's that too. 🙂

I'd still say go with the 64-bit if you're looking to keep it for a few years. Ask others if they think you should go Socket 939 or Socket 754. Last I looked, Socket 939 was really expensive, but that was as soon as it came out and I haven't checked since then.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
There is absolutly no reason to buy mobile xp's at this point in time. It's price to performance ratio has been trumped by A64 skt 754.
Click to expand...

aaah, Zebo is that really you??? 😉

hmm, i remember a "discussion" (argument?) i had with you once about A64 vs XP-M... but yeah, i suppose since prices have changed, the price/performance matrix has changed also, eh?

good to see all the enthusiasts jumping aboard AMD64... maybe if enough of us gang up on Microsoft, we can get WinXP-64 out the door that much faster 😉



I'd still say go with the 64-bit if you're looking to keep it for a few years. Ask others if they think you should go Socket 939 or Socket 754. Last I looked, Socket 939 was really expensive, but that was as soon as it came out and I haven't checked since then.
Click to expand...

skt939 mobo's don't seem to be THAT expensive to me.
also, there are supposed to be some 90nm "budget" A64's coming soon for the skt939 platform. like 3000+ and 3200+. those GOT to be better overclockers than the current 130nm A64 newcastles. which are already DAMN good as people like me and Zebo point out.

of course, since skt939 is dual-channel, you do have to go for 2 dimms. whereas an optimal skt754 config will usually have just 1 dimm. however, i suppose that makes it easy for an AthlonXP/NForce2 user to "migrate" to A64, since he can keep his dual-channel ram pair.

 
Thanks for your input everyone. Zebo, is there a reason other than price that you recommend the Athlon 64 2800 over the 3000?
 
The 90nm socket A64's are just about out the door. You might want to hold off a few weeks and see how much more overclockable the 90nm processors are than their 130nm brothers.
 
Originally posted by: LocutusX
Originally posted by: Zebo
There is absolutly no reason to buy mobile xp's at this point in time. It's price to performance ratio has been trumped by A64 skt 754.
Click to expand...

aaah, Zebo is that really you??? 😉

hmm, i remember a "discussion" (argument?) i had with you once about A64 vs XP-M... but yeah, i suppose since prices have changed, the price/performance matrix has changed also, eh?

good to see all the enthusiasts jumping aboard AMD64... maybe if enough of us gang up on Microsoft, we can get WinXP-64 out the door that much faster 😉
Click to expand...

That was two months ago, times have changed...good steppings are more prevelent...more importantly prices have changed. When you can get a setup like a mwave.com, and with free $30 good game, it does put A64 over the top. It's still close though if you were to buy a newegg instead😉



 
Originally posted by: snapetta
Thanks for your input everyone. Zebo, is there a reason other than price that you recommend the Athlon 64 2800 over the 3000?
Click to expand...

Yup the price. Of course the 3000 is better and the 3200 better than that and so forth..

Reason is a 3000 can be a 2800 because you can lower multiplier but a 2800 is stuck at 9 and below. The 3000+ has more flexbility in setting up memory for overclocking. Unless you know before hand the memory speed you are capable of and know for sure the 2800+ CPU multiplier suffices.

What I mean is this: Say both chips can hit 2500Mhz, which they can quite frequently.

On the 3000 which has a multi of 10, you'd set HTT to 250Mhz to get there and either run sync mem 1:1 with very good ram or set mem to 166 and any cheap ram can run 207Mhz.

With the 2800@2500Mhz, the HTT needs to be set to 277Mhz, first not a trivial task for all boards. Second is no memory will run 277Mhz on a A64 mobo AFAIK. So you'd set mem, async, to 166 meaning 230mhz mem speed...still can't use cheap memory here. Or you set cheap mem to 133, knocking mem speeds all the way down to 184Mhz leading to poor performance.

I would just get the 2800 and run asnyc mem (166 setting with crucial 8T mwave is selling, that stuff will hit 230mhz)..but many people do not like this idea. Do you feel lucky is the question. Luckly Crucial ram makes the decision easier.

If you buy the 3000 then the XP is a better deal IMO.
 
what is so good about the crucial 8T mwave is selling?
what kind of cooling do you need to overclcok to 2500mhz and what is the min. for power supply?
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
There needs to be a sticky on these forums.

There is absolutly no reason to buy mobile xp's at this point in time. It's price to performance ratio has been trumped by A64 skt 754.
Click to expand...

There can be many reasons to choose mobile XP's over the A64.

While I know almost zero about A64's, I do know a little about XP's.
For myself, I need a motherboard for a small HTPC box, that includes onboard audio with hardware DD.
AGP and 2 PCI slots will be filled with video, HDTV tuner, DVB-S tuner, with remaining slug used for SPDIF and Com1 (for remote).
For HDTV with DVB-S, also needs CPU to hit over 2GHz raw with FSB meaningless.
It also must run nearly silent, so cooling is critical, yet still be very fast.
Keep it priced under $180 as well (MB+CPU).
NF2 uATX with MCP-T, or NF1 with MCP-D, plus a mobile XP are the only solution.

Also for the above HTPC type systems, case size is important.
Most small uATX cases will only have a 200w supply. (Antec Aria 300w).
With mobile XP's at 35w/45w, this is fine, but with 65w+ A64, could be trouble if not impossible.
 
Originally posted by: RobsTV
Originally posted by: Zebo
There needs to be a sticky on these forums.

There is absolutly no reason to buy mobile xp's at this point in time. It's price to performance ratio has been trumped by A64 skt 754.
Click to expand...

There can be many reasons to choose mobile XP's over the A64.

While I know almost zero about A64's, I do know a little about XP's.
For myself, I need a motherboard for a small HTPC box, that includes onboard audio with hardware DD.
AGP and 2 PCI slots will be filled with video, HDTV tuner, DVB-S tuner, with remaining slug used for SPDIF and Com1 (for remote).
For HDTV with DVB-S, also needs CPU to hit over 2GHz raw with FSB meaningless.
It also must run nearly silent, so cooling is critical, yet still be very fast.
Keep it priced under $180 as well (MB+CPU).
NF2 uATX with MCP-T, or NF1 with MCP-D, plus a mobile XP are the only solution.

Also for the above HTPC type systems, case size is important.
Most small uATX cases will only have a 200w supply. (Antec Aria 300w).
With mobile XP's at 35w/45w, this is fine, but with 65w+ A64, could be trouble if not impossible.
Click to expand...

Mobile A64s are 35W...
 
Originally posted by: Viditor
Originally posted by: RobsTV
Originally posted by: Zebo
There needs to be a sticky on these forums.

There is absolutly no reason to buy mobile xp's at this point in time. It's price to performance ratio has been trumped by A64 skt 754.
Click to expand...

There can be many reasons to choose mobile XP's over the A64.

While I know almost zero about A64's, I do know a little about XP's.
For myself, I need a motherboard for a small HTPC box, that includes onboard audio with hardware DD.
AGP and 2 PCI slots will be filled with video, HDTV tuner, DVB-S tuner, with remaining slug used for SPDIF and Com1 (for remote).
For HDTV with DVB-S, also needs CPU to hit over 2GHz raw with FSB meaningless.
It also must run nearly silent, so cooling is critical, yet still be very fast.
Keep it priced under $180 as well (MB+CPU).
NF2 uATX with MCP-T, or NF1 with MCP-D, plus a mobile XP are the only solution.

Also for the above HTPC type systems, case size is important.
Most small uATX cases will only have a 200w supply. (Antec Aria 300w).
With mobile XP's at 35w/45w, this is fine, but with 65w+ A64, could be trouble if not impossible.
Click to expand...

Mobile A64s are 35W...
Click to expand...


Thanks.
As I stated I know very little about A64's.
But based on this thread:
The mobile Athlon 64 and motherboards
and specifically this quote:

(d) Wait, but aren't the 1.4v mobile Athlon 64s much cooler running than the DTR processors? Actually, no they're not. Remember that when AMD rates thermal output they only give the max output for the single top of the food chain CPU. Thus, for the desktop and mobile C0 revision, the highest is a 3400+ at 89W. For the CG revision DTRs the highest is a 3400+ at 81.5W. Now here's where you need to pay attention. The highest CG revision 1.4V mobile CPU is the 3200+ and NOT the 3400+ so the TDP listed of 62W cannot be compared to the other CPUs. In fact, if you compare it to the DTR CPUs and do a little guestimation (don't know if there's a linear relationship between clockspeed and heat) you'll see that these are basically CG DTR CPUs running at 1.4V These are just rebranded DTR CPUs.
Click to expand...

Based on the above, I mistakenly thought Mobile A64's ranged from 62w to 89w.
Just checked AMD, and found that they do make a neutered mobile A64 w/512 cache running 35w.

But then again, this is way off where I was going, which was to state that there are times and reasons
when you would want an XP mobile over the A64. Price!!! A64 mobile price is far too expensive.
 
Originally posted by: RobsTV
Originally posted by: Zebo
There needs to be a sticky on these forums.

There is absolutly no reason to buy mobile xp's at this point in time. It's price to performance ratio has been trumped by A64 skt 754.
Click to expand...

There can be many reasons to choose mobile XP's over the A64.

While I know almost zero about A64's, I do know a little about XP's.
For myself, I need a motherboard for a small HTPC box, that includes onboard audio with hardware DD.
AGP and 2 PCI slots will be filled with video, HDTV tuner, DVB-S tuner, with remaining slug used for SPDIF and Com1 (for remote).
For HDTV with DVB-S, also needs CPU to hit over 2GHz raw with FSB meaningless.
It also must run nearly silent, so cooling is critical, yet still be very fast.
Keep it priced under $180 as well (MB+CPU).
NF2 uATX with MCP-T, or NF1 with MCP-D, plus a mobile XP are the only solution.

Also for the above HTPC type systems, case size is important.
Most small uATX cases will only have a 200w supply. (Antec Aria 300w).
With mobile XP's at 35w/45w, this is fine, but with 65w+ A64, could be trouble if not impossible.
Click to expand...

🙂 ...ya well you can run these 2800's at about 35W too. Mine runs fine at stock speed with 1.35V. AMD's TDPs are highly inflated assuming full load, on the highest rated chip in the iteration. When they say 89W they mean priming on the FX-53. A 2800 only uses about 65W. Also I'd use SPDIF out anyway in a HTPC bypassing even the vaunted MCP-T and many A64 boards have a SPDIF connection. Nevertheless, yes there are some exceptions to *THIS* mwave 2800 deal. Duly noted. I already said the 3000 deal vs. a XP mobile combo from newegg is about even price/performance.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Originally posted by: snapetta
Thanks for your input everyone. Zebo, is there a reason other than price that you recommend the Athlon 64 2800 over the 3000?
Click to expand...

Yup the price. Of course the 3000 is better and the 3200 better than that and so forth..

Reason is a 3000 can be a 2800 because you can lower multiplier but a 2800 is stuck at 9 and below. The 3000+ has more flexbility in setting up memory for overclocking. Unless you know before hand the memory speed you are capable of and know for sure the 2800+ CPU multiplier suffices.

What I mean is this: Say both chips can hit 2500Mhz, which they can quite frequently.

On the 3000 which has a multi of 10, you'd set HTT to 250Mhz to get there and either run sync mem 1:1 with very good ram or set mem to 166 and any cheap ram can run 207Mhz.

With the 2800@2500Mhz, the HTT needs to be set to 277Mhz, first not a trivial task for all boards. Second is no memory will run 277Mhz on a A64 mobo AFAIK. So you'd set mem, async, to 166 meaning 230mhz mem speed...still can't use cheap memory here. Or you set cheap mem to 133, knocking mem speeds all the way down to 184Mhz leading to poor performance.

I would just get the 2800 and run asnyc mem (166 setting with crucial 8T mwave is selling, that stuff will hit 230mhz)..but many people do not like this idea. Do you feel lucky is the question. Luckly Crucial ram makes the decision easier.

If you buy the 3000 then the XP is a better deal IMO.
Click to expand...

A few questions if anyone can answer:

So the 3000 comes in 200 x 10 stock, while the 2800 comes in 200 x 9 stock. If i have a stick of Samsung PC2700 tcb3 and i'm getting the 2800, will it be overclocked from 166 and still run at 200 (if the ram handles it)? I'm still learning about the A64, what is this memory setting that runs seperately from the htt? is it just like like a ratio? So if i still want to OC for performance with my pc2700, i won't real get results? i should upgrade to pc3200 or 3500,etc. or what? if anyone could explain, that would be great.


 
um... you should just make things easier on yourself and get some PC3200 ram. i mean, RAM bandwidth comes in handy in plenty of different sorts of applications, including games. Doom3 for example. DVD/Divx encoding as another example. I personally would not go below 200mhz for RAM speed, even for overclocking; i'd try to get the best possible CPU speed combined with a ram speed of at least 200mhz.


 
Then you should really get the 2800... HTT at 270 and mem setting of 133 = 179Mhz memory speed which your RAM can handle.

Mem setting work like this:
200 = HTT Speed
166 = HTT Speed x .83
133 = HTT speed x .665
100 = HTT sppeds x .50
 
sounds good, would that be the best performance possible with that pc2700? and come how in one of your earlier posts you said that, that idea isn't popular here at the forums? why?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top