P4 Memory Bandwidth

[crowdx]

Hi,
from all the benchmarks of P4 vs Athlon , the P4 memory scores are far superior, SO how can an Athlon compete in memory intensive apps like Photoshop or video rendering etc?
Is it just for gamers that this advantage does not make such a great difference?
Patrick

 

[joe2004]

As an owner of two Pentiums IV I can tell you that Pentium is a weakling compared with Athon. As you said the field of advantage is in 3D rendering and media compression/editing. Other than that Athlon has no problem competing with Pentium. My Athlon 64 3200+ blows any Pentium out of water. We'll see if Prescot can measure up. Synthetic memory benchmarks are not neccessary a good measure of performance.

 

[crowdx]

Are they P4 800 mhz FSB? I would think the only chip would be the Athlon 64 which at present is VERY expensive.

 

[Duvie]

Yes I agree...Unless the p4's are not 800fsb chips w/ HT and or are under 3ghz there is no way the 3200+ non FX model will blow away the p4....

The athlon has a powerful fpu as well as a higher IPC...In those apps you list they are still more cpu dependent then memory and that ultimately means more...I did a comparision of memory speed srecently and found out the difference in speeds 100mhz apart often with big spreads in bandwidth numbers often meant little when it came to performance. Timings often meant much more in several of the video rendering/encoding programs...

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: crowdx
Hi,
from all the benchmarks of P4 vs Athlon , the P4 memory scores are far superior, SO how can an Athlon compete in memory intensive apps like Photoshop or video rendering etc?
Is it just for gamers that this advantage does not make such a great difference?
Patrick

Because programs like SiSoft and Aida that give a "memory score" are a total joke. The dont at all represent real world performance. They are good programs for memory mfgrs to inflate the actual benefit of overpriced "high speed" memory.

 

[dnuggett]

My Athlon 64 3200+ blows any Pentium out of water.

Well the 3.2 is the only exception I have seen to this and that was in Photoshop. As far as frames in gaming it' a toss up. The P4 blew the 64 3200+ out of the water in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but turns around and gets blown out in UT 2003.

 

[crowdx]

Think I am gonna stick with my overclocked Barton 2500+ , had already ordered 3500 memory (2 sticks) and an Epox 8RDA3+ board which I am swapping with my existing 8RDA+ board into another machine. So with all memory slots filled I will have some extra memory at the expense of Dual channel, which kinda sucks. Gonna try and get the Barton past the 3000+ rating it is currently at with the new faster memory and see if that helps a little with speed.
Thanks for the advice
Patrick