Athlon64 3000+: 64-bit at Half the Price
by Wesley Fink on December 22, 2003 8:15 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
While the Athlon64 is a better designed and better performing processor than the Athlon XP in almost every way, people have not been waiting in line to buy the processor. Certainly the cost of motherboards is not the reason, since there are many Socket 754 boards in the $100 and less price range. Performance compared to Intel is also not the reason, since the Athlon64 3200+ performs very well compared to Intel's best. The issue seems to be price. AMD loyalists want it all, but they seem to want it all at a cheap price. Perhaps the long wait for Athlon64 with AMD prices dropping spoiled AMD buyers to expect incredible performance at very low prices. This high-performance-at-low-cost is certainly what AnandTech found with AMD processors in the recent Budget CPU Shootout.The Athlon64 3000+ is the chip that answers the need for a lower cost Athlon64. At just over $200, the 3000+ cuts the cost of entry for Athlon64 computing in half. This in itself is significant and should have A64 3000+ chips flying off dealer shelves.
Value, however, is not just about price; it is about performance for your dollar. The Athlon64 3000+ delivers value in spades. Running at the same speed as the 3200+, the reduction in cache to 512k has only a minor impact on performance. In almost every benchmark, the 3000+ is only a few percent lower in performance than a 3200+. Even more important, the 3000+ performs very well compared to Intel's 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 - a chip that sells for almost double the cost of the Athlon64 3000+.
While the Athlon64 FX and Athlon 64 3200+ are both fairly priced considering their performance, there is no arguing that they are too expensive for many would-be buyers. The Athlon64 3000+ should fit most budgets, and the even better news is that it performs very well indeed. There are a lot of AMD potential buyers who want a more reasonably-priced Athlon64 that will out-game Intel's top 3.2 and 3.0 chips. The Athlon 64 3000+ is also that chip. You get the bragging rights that the 3000+ does outperform the 3.2 in most games at a price that most budgets can handle. The Athlon 64 3000+ looks like a winner!
Anand has an in-depth look at the Athlon64 3000+ in the works that will provide all you would want to know about Newcastle. If these initial performance benchmarks have excited you, as they have excited us here at AnandTech, then you don't want to miss Anand's upcoming Newcastle Technology Review.
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arejerjejjerjre - Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - link
MrEman havent you noticed that Intel is slowly going to the direction of more performance per clock!Every new release of their cpu has been made to perform better than the last one with the same clock speed like Willamette->NW->NW(133FSB)->P4(200FSB)C
arejerjejjerjre - Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - link
Why is it that A64 is so strong compared to P4 3.0 and 3.2 in gaming performance I recall seeing many articles say otherwise? One thing I remember clearly that P4 3.2 (not extreme edition) won quite perfectly any athlon 64 thrown at it! A64 Fx51 is another thing though...Pumpkinierre - Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - link
Here you go #30 from the horse's (AT) mouth:"While the Athlon64 is a better designed and better performing processor than the Athlon XP in almost every way, people have not been waiting in line to buy the processor. Certainly the cost of motherboards is not the reason, since there are many Socket 754 boards in the $100 and less price range. Performance compared to Intel is also not the reason, since the Athlon64 3200+ performs very well compared to Intel’s best. The issue seems to be price."
They might be shipping fine but not many have been buying .
As far as the mobo explanation for the smaller memory latency shown by the 3000+ goes, I would expect the soltek board (3000+) to be a slower board than the ABIT board which targets gamers and enthusiasts. Many people say that increased cache improves latency. If the cache is the same size as memory this may be so. But in fact as soon as the cache is below half of the memory size it starts becoming a hindrance to memory latency for applications where it has to be purged and refreshed at the whim of an operator. This article shows this ,with very little difference in performance between 512k and 1 Mb l2 models. There is a cache size between CPU instruction/data starvation and redundant cache purging and refreshing which optimises memory latency for aparticular application. In the case of gaming with the A64 I believe that to be 128 to 256K of L1 preferably, or larger L2 (256-512K) and small inclusive L1 (a la P4).
And the AMD rating system is crap. Just call it A64 2.0GHz 640K combined cache and it will sell just as well if not better.
Reflex - Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - link
The ratings argument was rediculous. Most consumers really only know Intel's chips, so rating against them is pretty much the only way to rate your processor family if your name is not Intel. Honestly, Intel is using a ratings system more or less by just going on Mhz, when you consider the fact that Mhz is almost meaningless in thier current designs its just as much an arbitrary number as anything else.I really don't know anyone who has been confused by just giving them a number that compares to Intel. Its simple and keeps the issue from becoming too large. Considering the fact that most consumers will *not* bother to get to know the differences in architecture before they purchase their PC, there really isn't a huge choice. And the car analogy was rediculous, there is no auto manufacturer that owns 80%+ of the market, so there is no need for competitors to rate thier products against the market leader. If a auto manufacturer was at that level you can be certain that the competition would be comparing themselves to the leader, thats how it generally works...
And more cache does not equal a crippled gaming CPU. The cache on a FX series CPU is running at the same speed as on a A64, its just larger. This is a good thing, and honestly there are no scenerios I can come up with where it would harm performance in any way that could possibly be noticable to the end user. It was a good move. So far as I can tell the FX outperforms the A64 on literally everything, so I see nothing deceptive about it at all.
dvinnen - Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - link
Pumpkinierre: Please shut up. The 3200+ os shipping fine. They even if they haden't done a silent release, it has nothing to do with the server faimly. Releasing a slower chip isn't usally sometihng to shout from the rooftops. And the slight memory difference had nothing to do with the cache. It was 2 cycles faster most likly because they weere two different mobos. For your P4EE review, is it so hard to check the older anandtechs review of it?I'm not going to get your absurd argument about the rating scheme
Reflex - Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - link
To the guys mentioning the P4EE: I only ask where the Alpha EV8, Sparc, Xeon, Itanium, and Opteron are. Most of those are in the same price range. The EE is not a chip in the same catagory, judging by price, as the Athlon64 3000+, or even the Opteron and FX. The only one listed on realtime pricing is the 3.2Ghz at ZipZoomFly and it runs $1032. Thats the same price you could build an entire Athlon64 system for! Its not really comparable and dosen't belong in this comparison any more than an Alpha or Xeon does. In a comparison of a new FX I would expect to see the EE, but really you only need one top end CPU to put budget processors in perspective, and the fastest top end CPU was already used(AthlonFX) so why add more and waste a ton more time benchmarking. We already can figure out where the EE would stand just by looking at earlier reviews and its relation to the FX, so no point in rehashing it here...As for this CPU, I really don't care what the original core is. Its a top flight CPU for a very good price on a platform with a lengthy upgrade path. What more can you ask for? And, when 64bit hits mainstream, it can handle it, which is a nice bonus. If I could spare $300 right now I'd be there. ;>
Pumpkinierre - Monday, December 22, 2003 - link
As far as I am aware #26 Intel name their celeron and centrino processors according to their actual speed not some mythical "equivalent" with the P4. Even within the P4 intel makes no distinction between 100,133,200MHz FSB or 512K,256K L2 cache or hyperthreading even though these attributes add power to the CPU. Even Apple, forever bragging how much they are better than wintel machines, dont give an equivalent. Only AMD have gotten themselves in this contorted lie upon lie type rating mess. Its up to the consumer to find out and the sales personnel to point out the strenghts and weaknesses of each cpu. This is routine, when you buy a honda or mazda car you dont get a Ford or GM equivalent rating thrown at you. You buy it on its own merits. Try this:A-XP: Very good at games and all 2D, cheap.
A64: Best at everything except video encoding, expensive.
P4: Best at media encoding and very good at all other tasks, middle to expensive.
If AMD put that out theyd get plenty more sales as the majority are interested in Office, gaming and internet applications-the strong points of the K7 and K8's. Instead consumers get this stupid rating system where clearly the A64 performance and cost are superior to the A-XP of equivalent rating. So one question would probably sink the sale as they'd recognise a con and turn to intel who name their products for what they are.
yak8998 - Monday, December 22, 2003 - link
#26 - I think Intel's system is much better, although it could use some improvement. Simply name, clockspeed and a letter, ex: P4 2.4C. It would be harder for AMD tho due to a few more factors (memory controller and such)MrEMan - Monday, December 22, 2003 - link
#23/24, what would you suggest AMD use in place of their current part numbering scheme? Is Intel's clock speed designation any more accurate/less confusing when comparing P4s and Celerons? In my opinion, the PC industry needs something along the lines of the cpu performance equivalent to the FTC power spec for measuring audio amplifier outputs.I believe AMD was/is trying to get the industry to back the True Performance Initiative in order to achieve more accurate comparisons when testing different processor architectures.
However, unless Intel dumps the P4 design, they have no business reason to change to something far more accurate then their current "GHz is everything" preference for the retail market.
Unfortunately, the uninformed buyers are the ones most hurt by the lack of an industry standard for measuring CPU and system performance.
PorBleemo - Monday, December 22, 2003 - link
On the main page it says it has 512MB of L2 cache! That's OK by me! :P