P4 2.8 Prescott or Athlon64 2800?

[Maverick05]

Hi, i'm planning to upgrade my pc a bit, so i hope you could help me choose. i'm thinking of buying an athlon 64 2800, but now my friend is selling his P4 2.8 Prescott to me for the same price as a brand new Athlon64 2800. I hope you could give me some advice on which processor is a better buy, since i'm quite a newbie on the differences between the two.

BTW, another friend of mine told me the p4 2.8 is faster since it has a 1mb L2 cache compared to the a64 2800's 512k, does this matter? And what is the equivalent of the athlon 64 2800 in the pentium4 line? Thanks!

 

[clarkey01]

Cache doesnt matter on athlon 64's. The 2.8 E will be faster ever so slightly but for games the K8 will beat it soundly. The 2.8e will be hot too.

I'd choose the athlon, it's also alot snappier then the Intel chip.

 

[n7]

Tell your friend you don't want his Preshott 😉

The 2.8 P4 & 2800+ A64 will perform similarly; they are the equivilents or each other.

The P4 will run hotter though, & won't be as good with games, not to mention that lack of 64-bit support.

If all you ever do is video encoding & you don't care to keep the CPU for very long, you could with the P4 i suppose, but overall, i'd certainly not recommend it.

My recommendation would be to get a good cheap socket 939 motherboard & an A64 3000+.

That way when you decide you want dual-core, you should be able to pop in one of those onto your existing A64 939 motherboard.

 

[krcat1]

If the price of a 64 2800+ 754 is 125 retail, the price of a Venice core 64 3000+ is 150.

The price of a good MB is about the same all around, I think the Venice core is a better deal than a used P4.

 

[carlosd]

Originally posted by: krcat1
If the price of a 64 2800+ 754 is 125 retail, the price of a Venice core 64 3000+ is 150.

The price of a good MB is about the same all around, I think the Venice core is a better deal than a used P4.

Yes just add 50 bucks to the price of an A64 2800+ and you get a Venice 3000+ which is a lot better than a presHOT 2.8., Also you will have the option of dualcores in the future, not with the used 2.8 crapsHOTt.

 

[ssvegeta1010]

The P4s extra L2 cache makes basically no difference in performance. The prescott has many "optimizations" added to it to help it reach a higher speed, but heat stopped a retail launch of 4+ GHz. These optimizations lower performance at lower clockspeeds and cancel out the extra performance of the additional L2 cache.

I would go with the A64.

EDIT: By "optimizations" I mean a longer pipeline, and differences in Trace Cache handling, etc.

 

[Aenslead]

Originally posted by: Maverick05
Hi, i'm planning to upgrade my pc a bit, so i hope you could help me choose. i'm thinking of buying an athlon 64 2800, but now my friend is selling his P4 2.8 Prescott to me for the same price as a brand new Athlon64 2800. I hope you could give me some advice on which processor is a better buy, since i'm quite a newbie on the differences between the two.

BTW, another friend of mine told me the p4 2.8 is faster since it has a 1mb L2 cache compared to the a64 2800's 512k, does this matter? And what is the equivalent of the athlon 64 2800 in the pentium4 line? Thanks!

Slap your friend with a giant, smelly trout and ask him why the hell he wanted to rip you off with that processor he's selling.

Surely, as soon as he sold his P4, he would've gotten an AMD processor. 😀

No, you go and get your Athlon 64 computer and be happy.

 

[Zebo]

The P4 is faster in general here globally speaking.. The 2800 is a bit overrated....should have been called a 2700. But if you OC the 2800 is the way to go. If you game the 2800 is a bit faster.

 

[anandtechrocks]

Because the speed ratio between these processors is so large, in many cases where the Athlon 64 would dominate, it has a very little, or no preformance edge. The P4 enjoys about a 36% clockspeed increase on the 2800+. Furthermore, socket 754 isn't going anywhere (neither is 775 for that matter but) I'd definately say ditch your friend and that weak 2800+ and get a 3000+. If you're set on getting either the P4 2800, or the Athlon 2800+ I would auctually recommend the P4.

 

[Aenslead]

I think his friend's Prescott is skt 478, by the looks of it.

Zebo: THG CPU guide shows Athlon 64 2800+ is usually faster than the P4 3.0E in 7/10 tests, and when otherwise loses by a tight margin. Unfortunately, upgradability wise, both are doomed plataforms.

 

[Chode Messiah]

3000+ venice, nforce4 mobo, pcie graphics card. You'll be set for a while, and you'll have a steady upgrade path.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Aenslead
I think his friend's Prescott is skt 478, by the looks of it.

Zebo: THG CPU guide shows Athlon 64 2800+ is usually faster than the P4 3.0E in 7/10 tests, and when otherwise loses by a tight margin. Unfortunately, upgradability wise, both are doomed plataforms.

Hey Aenslead..nice tools on your desktop pics..mind sharing what those are?

I don't care what TOMS Cluless hardware shows. He is only reputable in monitors and medicine IMO.. I mean what kind of serious commercial reveiwer only runs 10 benchmarks?

A64 2800 only wins 10/25 benchmarks at anandtech to P4 2.8E. (see link below)

The 754 newcastle PRE (pentium rating E core) ratio is 1.5:1 I know this after I've put several reviews of these processors into excel and gobalized them similar to my spread sheet in sig.

This means, A64 2800 which runs at 1800Mhz x 1.5 = 2700Mhz P4 equivalent globally speaking.

You can do it yourself here: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2038

Now, this is all stock, but if you want to argue what processor is better at games? Has lower power consumption..better OC abilities which will put it over the top..and price.. A64 2800 comes out far ahead.

It's $50 cheaper. Runs cooler. Can clock to 2600Mhz (ie 3900Mhz P4E).🙂

 

[MDme]

he is not your friend. if he is selling a used P4 for the price of a brand new A64. if i were you, i'd add a little cash for a 3000+ 939 A64 chip. it has a better upgrade path, performance, and OC'ability.

 

[Aenslead]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: Aenslead
I think his friend's Prescott is skt 478, by the looks of it.

Zebo: THG CPU guide shows Athlon 64 2800+ is usually faster than the P4 3.0E in 7/10 tests, and when otherwise loses by a tight margin. Unfortunately, upgradability wise, both are doomed plataforms.

Hey Aenslead..nice tools on your desktop pics..mind sharing what those are?

Sure! I'm using Konfabulator, Object Dock and Icon X. Enough to keep me away from wanting an OS X! 😀

I don't care what TOMS Cluless hardware shows. He is only reputable in monitors and medicine IMO.. I mean what kind of serious commercial reveiwer only runs 10 benchmarks?

Well... they WHERE NOT only 10 tests... its a manner of saying "70% of the tests". Sorry!

A64 2800 only wins 10/25 benchmarks at anandtech to P4 2.8E. (see link below)

The 754 newcastle PRE (pentium rating E core) ratio is 1.5:1 I know this after I've put several reviews of these processors into excel and gobalized them similar to my spread sheet in sig.

This means, A64 2800 which runs at 1800Mhz x 1.5 = 2700Mhz P4 equivalent globally speaking.

You can do it yourself here: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2038

Synthetic benchmarks hardly have any value, as you and I should know... and also, most of those tests where from SYSmark, and we know how biased towards Intel Bapco is. In games, A64 comes forward, and talking about 2800+ is almost like speaking of a 3000+ skt939 +/- 1-3%.

Now, this is all stock, but if you want to argue what processor is better at games? Has lower power consumption..better OC abilities which will put it over the top..and price.. A64 2800 comes out far ahead.

It's $50 cheaper. Runs cooler. Can clock to 2600Mhz (ie 3900Mhz P4E).🙂

That's why he must pick the A64! 😀

 

[Zebo]

LOL I tried to exclude the synthetics in the past an intel fans jump all over me for "selective data" so I figure it's not worth it...A64 is strong enough even including intel bankrolled benchmarks.😀

 

[Aenslead]

On the THG note... I really loved how they tried to impress everyone with their Dothan review. "Dothan rules in EVERYTHING!!"; sure, it does, when OCed... how about OCing the A64 or even the P4, to compete with it, too?!

It was a lame site to make reference to, but I beleive their charts are accurate.

 

[carlosd]

Originally posted by: Aenslead

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: Aenslead
I think his friend's Prescott is skt 478, by the looks of it.

Zebo: THG CPU guide shows Athlon 64 2800+ is usually faster than the P4 3.0E in 7/10 tests, and when otherwise loses by a tight margin. Unfortunately, upgradability wise, both are doomed plataforms.

Hey Aenslead..nice tools on your desktop pics..mind sharing what those are?

Sure! I'm using Konfabulator, Object Dock and Icon X. Enough to keep me away from wanting an OS X! 😀

I don't care what TOMS Cluless hardware shows. He is only reputable in monitors and medicine IMO.. I mean what kind of serious commercial reveiwer only runs 10 benchmarks?

Well... they WHERE NOT only 10 tests... its a manner of saying "70% of the tests". Sorry!

A64 2800 only wins 10/25 benchmarks at anandtech to P4 2.8E. (see link below)

The 754 newcastle PRE (pentium rating E core) ratio is 1.5:1 I know this after I've put several reviews of these processors into excel and gobalized them similar to my spread sheet in sig.

This means, A64 2800 which runs at 1800Mhz x 1.5 = 2700Mhz P4 equivalent globally speaking.

You can do it yourself here: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2038

Synthetic benchmarks hardly have any value, as you and I should know... and also, most of those tests where from SYSmark, and we know how biased towards Intel Bapco is. In games, A64 comes forward, and talking about 2800+ is almost like speaking of a 3000+ skt939 +/- 1-3%.

I figured it OUT, Please!! exclude synthethic benchmarks in comparisons they are useless.

 

[carlosd]

Originally posted by: Aenslead
On the THG note... I really loved how they tried to impress everyone with their Dothan review. "Dothan rules in EVERYTHING!!"; sure, it does, when OCed... how about OCing the A64 or even the P4, to compete with it, too?!

It was a lame site to make reference to, but I beleive their charts are accurate.

Also they missed to include winchester and Venice CPUs in Power consumption tests, oh why would be that? They only compared the power comsumption of AMD 130nm parts against dothan, which makes not any sense.

 

[Aenslead]

Well... the performance improvements on the Venice core are actually NOTHING to write home about... except in SSE3 compiled apps. And power consumption and thermal loss is like beating a dead horse, no, Zebo?

 

[Maverick05]

Thanks for all the replies guys. Your comments swayed me so much that i opt for the 939 3000+, gave a little setback to my budget but at least gave me a straight upgrade path. Thanks again!