Need some info about the Athlon64

[phrowzen]

Hey,

I have been an Intel guy for quite some time now. Because of this, I don't know terribly much about the AMD platform.

First of all, I am thinking of turning my intel platform into an amd64 platform, but had some questions first.

For starters, (i dont want to turn this into an all-out cpu battle...) is there any concrete advantage for gaming on either platform? Or is the performance spread rather equally amongst both platforms?

Second, the CPU I'm thinking of buying would probably be a 3200+ or 3400+ or so. Are these CPU's getting too old already? Anyways, my main concern is -- because I don't follow AMD much, I really don't know the common overclocks of these chips. I intend to purchase the CPU from this forum to get a proven overclocker, but I'm not sure how high these things usually go -- and I don't want to purchase a crappy overclocker .

Last -- I've heard that with the AMD64 platform, the sheer megahertz on the memory is not nearly as important as the timings. Does anyone have any information about this?

I believe thats about it. Please don't turn this post into an Intel vs. AMD war -- I didn't intend for that. I only wanted to know if either AMD/Intel CPU is *generally* better in more games than others.

Thanks,
phrowzen

 

[phrowzen]

bump

 

[otispunkmeyer]

first off AMD are good at games, but intel whoop ass at media encoding and the like, check out a few gaming benchmarks and you'll see AMD walk all over intel, ok if intel do beat AMD in a game bench its more than likely that the Intel chip cost alot more than AMD.

AMD 64 has also taken a price drop.......even more reason to buy, it offers even more performance for the money

second, the 3200 and 3400 are not old, but be aware that there are now TWO socket types. the 3200 and 3400 are available on socket 754, but AMD are streamlining the A64 and FX range into one socket, socket 939. so if u want this system to be a more future proof then socket 939 is the way to go. socket 939 also provides dual channle memory over 754's single channel....but the performance diff is about 10-15% greater memory bandwidth.

A64 doesnt overclock as well as those AMD mobile athlon XP's but, basically U CANNOT adjust multiplliers on A64, u cannot go up anyway, you can only go down. so your left with just the "FSB" to play with, so u'll need a board with a AGP/Pci lock.

with memory....if u were not goin to over clock then PC3200 would do fine, as FSB is 200 and ram is 200. u want to overclock so buying ram that is fast than 3200 will give u more head room when u fiddle with the FSB, TIMINGS however do not mean alot on A64.....the A64 has the memory controller on the CPU die, not on the northbridge, as a result the cpu communicates DIRECTLY with the ram, which reduces latency.....so timings are less important


overall AMD is better for games, and if u get PC4400 ram and a mobo with a PCI/AGP lock you should be able to get a nice overclock......you can relax timings on your ram to get higher speeds more stable as ive said timings dont mean much on A64

hope that helps

 

[LTC8K6]

I believe the S939 A64's are now beating Intel at encoding as well. Intel no longer has the lead in anything anymore, I believe.

 

[Mik3y]

phrowzhen, if you go socket 939 now, then your rig will kill ANY intel setup on everything, except maybe the P4 3.4GHz extreme edition, but who knows. amd is the way to go.

 

[phrowzen]

ahh.. such a great response. answered so many questions. thank you

i have heard, i believe it was actually an article on anandtech, that the agp/pci bus locks do not work on any of the chipsets currently available to the athlon 64. has there been any updates towards this? any new motherboards maybe?

i currently have corsair xms 3500c2pt (2*256) ... which are rated at DDR433, and poorly I've only been able to get them to achieve ddr444 or so. This was on a gigabyte ga-sinxp1394 and a p4 2.53 capable of 3.3 at stock volts.

so for this athlon 64 setup, I am looking for: high megahertz ddr memory (timings not very important), an a64 3400+ capable of a good overclock, and then drop the multiplier and raise the fsb?
can you recommend a motherboard?

also, should i scrounge multiple forums looking for a good overclocking a64 3400+, or does it not matter very much as a lower multiplier with high fsb will yield good performance anyways?

thanks,
phrowzen

EDIT: wow, right after I posted the response, I saw 2 more replies -- thanks guys. I suppose this socket 939 is significantly more expensive though, i suppose?

 

[Markfw]

AGP locks work on almost all of the new boards Nforce3 and KT800pro. Overclocking on Athlon64's don;t work that great, 10% max usually. And there is no fsb on Athlon64. It has an HTT and I don;t want to write a book to describe the differences, but anyway, you can't lower the multiplier (that I know of) and the HTT can only go up a little like to 215-220 from 200. Socket 939 is a little spendy. I would get a 3400+ newcastle if I were shopping right now.

 

[Mik3y]

well, wtih the price drops lately, the prices for socket 939 is much much more affordable. as for ram, hold on to your current one and try using it to overclock the cpu. there are many athlon 64 motherboards that support overclocking. try the msi neo motherboard. i hear its great. try the chieftech nf3 mobo. i hear thats great also.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

nforce 3 250 has a good working PCI lock and so does the K8T800pro, u can lower the multipliers i think jus not increase them

 

[phrowzen]

Great, thanks for the responses guys.

What ive taken from this is, the athlon64's don't take a large performance increase when overclocking (or, they just dont overclock well). So is it safe to say that if I buy myself an a64, I will get very good performance just at stock?

I believe I will save for a socket 939 a64 3500+ with an MSI K8N Neo2 -- to go with my 2*256 Corsair XMS3500C2PT. Does this combo sound ok, will my memory *really* hold me back?

Thanks,
phrowzen

EDIT: last part, havent seen the MSI K8N Neo2 anywhere, I suppose it is just on the verge of being released publically? Will it be in the same price range of the current socket 939 boards I already see available?

 

[chuwawa]

This 10% overclock is not correct. I believe Hardforum had a mobo review (?) where they got a 400mhz overclock on the 3000+.

 

[phrowzen]

Ahh ok. Sorry I am not familiar with the common overclocks on AMD's. I know Pentium 4's commonly see nearly a gig with a good overclock. Yet, I know that the core speeds of Athlon's are also slower, this makes sense for a smaller overclock.

However -- If I do decide to purchase a 3500+ retail and not from forums, will it still be a speedy system if it doesnt overclock well? I've never been able to purchase a good overclocking CPU from a store =\.

phrowzen

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Remember, due to the integrated memory controller and shorter pipelines a 200Mghrtz overclock on a AMD 64 is like a 300 to 400Mghrtz overclock on the P4. The memory controller increases the performance of the memory the faster the cpu frequency. At 2400Mghrtz on an AMD64 dual channel you will get like 6100 out of 6400 max bandwidth on PC3200 memory on the Nforce3 ultra chipset. The normal P4 gets around 4800 at PC3200 speeds (excluding the P4EE with its L2). You have to get up toward PC4000 at 1:1 on a P4 to even come close to the bandwidth of PC3200 on a AMD64. Imagine PC4000 at 1:1 on the AMD64. You will get around 7800 bandwidth. Yeah buddy. Of course that is not so easy on the memory picky AMD64 boards. The new MSI 939 Nforce Ultra got 290 at 1:1 in a recent review. Holy crispy crap! That is like 8800 bandwith

 

[harrkev]

Don't jump on the socket 939 bandwagon too fast... It depends a LOT on how YOU buy hardware.

There is still a pretty hefty price increase going to 939. But 939 will be easier to upgrade two years from now.

Let's assume that you always have to get the latest and greatest. Then go for 939 because you will not have to dump your mobo when the stop selling 754s.

On the other hand if you tend to buy now and use it for a couple of years, then you might at well go for a 754. Why pay for upgradability that you will never use?

Yes, I do know that 939 is faster, but it is also more expensive. If you get a 754, you could put that extra money towards more/faster RAM or a faster processor.

**EDIT**

My Newcastle 3000 overclocks 15% easily, and then the limiting factor is the RAM. If I bump the RAM clock down, I can get almost 25% extra on the core.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: harrkev
Don't jump on the socket 939 bandwagon too fast... It depends a LOT on how YOU buy hardware.

There is still a pretty hefty price increase going to 939. But 939 will be easier to upgrade two years from now.

Let's assume that you always have to get the latest and greatest. Then go for 939 because you will not have to dump your mobo when the stop selling 754s.

On the other hand if you tend to buy now and use it for a couple of years, then you might at well go for a 754. Why pay for upgradability that you will never use?

Yes, I do know that 939 is faster, but it is also more expensive. If you get a 754, you could put that extra money towards more/faster RAM or a faster processor.

**EDIT**

My Newcastle 3000 overclocks 15% easily, and then the limiting factor is the RAM. If I bump the RAM clock down, I can get almost 25% extra on the core.

Remember the 3500+ has dropped to 350.00 so it is finally approaches middle ground for upgrading. You can overclock it to 3800+ speeds on air from all the reviews I have seen. I am getting it for my Koolance system so I am hoping for 2500Mhrtz or more.

 

[phrowzen]

Thanks for the responses guys. Lots of good information.

Umm, my current consists of the following:

P4 2.6C
ASUS P4P800
2*256MB Corsair XMS3500C2 PT
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
2*WD 36GB S-ATA Raptors in RAID 0
... and all the rest of the usual stuff.

So as you may be able to tell, im definately not in an *urgent* need of an upgrade, so I can't exactly justify jumping up to an a64 socket 754 as it will most likely yield a small performance gain and little upgradability -- from what ive learned from you guys. I usually upgrade my cpu/mobo once a year, so again, the 939 will probably be a better choice.

Last, ive got a question sort of unrelated to the topic of this thread. Looking at my components listed above, does anyone have an idea of the next component to swap out of my system for increased performance (for a system based mainly around gaming.) -- I'm supposing the video card, just like to hear what you guys have to say.

thanks,
phrowzen

 

[Yanagi]

I would agree. Vid card next and after the vic card you might want to bump your mem up to 1GB to make your system even more future proof. Imaginge your AMD 3500+ with 1gb ram and a GF 6800GT rools: