Athlon 64 3000+ (2ghz)

[Asus]

Still too much for an Athlon 3200+ at 400$?
I'm sure some of you have been hearing about the Athlon 64 3000+ that is on newegg and a few other sites now.
Once the newness wares off it should be ~200$ USD or less.
On Newegg
Newegg lists it as 1.8ghz with 512KB L2 cache but it is really a 2ghz CPU with 512KB L2cache.
The 64 3200+ is 2ghz with 1MB L2 Cache.

I've condensed the gaming benchmark results for just the Athlon 64 3000+ and the 3.2 GHz P4.

3D Mark 2K1 @ 640x480
Athlon 64 3000+ - 21,075
P4 3.2 GHz - 19,382
Athlon 64 won by 8.7%

3D Mark 2K1 @ 1024x768
Athlon 64 3000+ - 18,924
P4 3.2 GHz - 17,587
Athlon 64 won by 7.6%

Comanche 4 @ 1024x768
Athlon 64 3000+ - 60.63
P4 3.2 GHz - 62.46
P4 won by 3.0%

Quake 3 @ 640x480
Athlon 64 3000+ - 462.2
P4 3.2 GHz - 454.6
Athlon 64 won by 1.7%

Quake 3 @ 1024x768
Athlon 64 3000+ - 389.0
P4 3.2 GHz - 370.2
Athlon 64 won by 5.1%

Serious Sam @ 640x480
Athlon 64 3000+ - 248.6
P4 3.2 GHz - 195.4
Athlon 64 won by 27.2%

Serious Sam @ 1024x768
Athlon 64 3000+ - 161.2
P4 3.2 GHz - 134.6
Athlon 64 won by 19.8%

Return to Castle Wolfenstein @ 1024x768
Athlon 64 3000+ - 139.3
P4 3.2 GHz - 138.0
Athlon 64 won by 0.94%

Unreal Tournament 2K3 @ 1024x768
Athlon 64 3000+ - 71.28
P4 3.2 GHz - 60.89
Athlon 64 won by 17.1%

As you can see, Athlon 64 won eight of the nine benchmarks, and one of them by 27%.

Sample Benchmarks

 

[Majestic XII]

Yep, the Athlon63 3000+ looks really fast and cheap, just like a AMD should be.

Ill get an A64 for sure next time i upgrade.

Edit: And this is still in 32 bit mode... think about 64bit os/games, that would mean something like 60% performance gain ( i hope )

 

[The Dark Elf]

woah, looking pretty impressive there.. Yep I think my next upgrade will be one of those, well by the time I upgrade (touch wood) wont be for a good while yet, so the 64bit ones should be all thats on the market as new by then.

No doubt though Microsoft will find a way to slow the thing down to a crawl with their next Operating System ;(

 

[Meteor_of_War]

I know they're rediculously expensive right now, but shouldnt we be waiting for the Athlon 64 FX chips? I hear they're much better for gaming. If this is true i wont be wasting my money on the regular Athlon 64s...i'll be saving for the better FX chip.

 

[iamironsam]

The new 64's aren't multiplier locked either, which is nice for OCers.

I'd still rather wait for a 64bit Windows before dropping extra dough on a 64bit capable chip. Buying a 64bit chip at this point is a little preemptive in my opinion.

 

[crabcakes66]

The new 64's aren't multiplier locked either, which is nice for OCers.

I'd still rather wait for a 64bit Windows before dropping extra dough on a 64bit capable chip. Buying a 64bit chip at this point is a little preemptive in my opinion.

/me agrees.....

 

[Asus]

If you find the Athlon 64 FX-51, Athlon 64 3200+ or even the P4 3.2ghz too expensive, this might be in within your budget.
One of the main reasons to consider it.

I wouldn't buy it because I could get a better chip yet I also plan to with hold my cash til ...San Diego or maybe a dual Opteron down the line.

 

[Meteor_of_War]

I'd wait untill socket 939 comes out, then you'll be able to run the FX without needing registered ram.

 

[Asus]

Actually, I perfer registered/buffered ram.
I wouldn't think of having more than 2 1GB sticks of memory or 3 sticks of 512MB without it. Banks is the key.

 

[Meteor_of_War]

yes, but my point was that right now i hear it's the required RAM for these types of setups and it's more expensive.
Once the socket 939 boards are around it will be different. Also everything's probably still buggy, it's safer to wait a while.

 

[Asus]

Yeah, you can only use Registered RAM because the memory controller does not register it. Each stick does its own registering and that is why you can have more than 4 banks of memory. 4 banks = 4x256mb (low density), 2x512mb (low density) or 2x1gb (high density).

For socket 939, you use normal RAM but you cannot use registered ram because the memory contorller will be set to register memory.
And you cannot have beyond 4 banks without a big loss in performance.

But if you have no intention of going beyond 4 banks then you are probably looking forward to socket 939 to loose a small bit of latency with non-buffered RAM.

Whats funny is a lot of ppl weren't into PCs back when you looked at memory by banks and now as we get more and more memory we are going to be running into it again.

But nothing is buggy about Athlon 64...except MS 64 beta. lol

 

[Meteor_of_War]

Thanks for the informative post Asus. I just recently started researching this and i dont know everything about it all yet (i hope to get a Athlon 64 based system for my next upgrade).

 

[Bastion]

hey asus, is it true the amd 64 & fx chips cant use dual channel mode? The reason im asking is I have been AMD sence 1995 and I am thinking about the intel 3.2 and the amd 64 3200. whats getting me is my 2800 OCed to a 3200 is doing 5629 in the 3dmark2003 and I see some intel guys with 2.8c's and 3.0 and up either scoreing under my score or just a lill above, which I thought they would be killing my score with 3.0 and up cpu's. Along time ago it wasnt even a disision for me to go with AMD, now its a harder to come up with what I want.

 

[Meteor_of_War]

You cant really compare AMD & Intel CPUs by clock speed. It's pretty normal for your OC'd 2800+ to be scoring close (or above) the P4 2.8c's and 3.0's. Also, i believe the 3dmark tests rely more on your video card than your CPU.

Read through this article for more info:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1524

 

[Bastion]

yeah MoW I just asumed that everyone reading my post would know same mem, same vid card so on, I just thought my 2.2 Ghz wouldnt score as good as a 2.8 or 3.0 is all. the last intel chip I owned was a p5 75Mhz, I was just thinking of doing a intel chip. TY for your responce on my post & the artical which im reading now.

 

[Asus]

All Athlon 64 FX chips are dual channel (socket 940).
All socket 939 will be as well (future Athlon FX and rated chips)
Athlon 64 3200+ and 3000+ are single channel memory (socket 754) but like i mentioned before...future rated CPUs (e.g. 3600+) under socket 939 will be dual channel.

Even without dual channel, Athlon 64 can still pack a punch because a lot of performance is from lower latency using the onboard memory controller. As they increase the clock speed for Athlon 64, the performance advantage of the low lantency memory controller will become even more noticable.

For the price, the Athlon 64 3000+/3200+ (socket 754) are good CPUs but they are sort of cut down versions (single channel memory) of the full FX series for now.

 

[Bastion]

yeah thanks asus, my buds with same ddr & 9800pro 128 are scoring lower then me in 3Dmark2003 buy like 100. Im just not sure what if any differance the dual channel will make. I would like to OC it to 2.2 like my XP chip now. when are the other 3400+ chips comming?

 

[Asus]

One of the first few months in 2004 most likely.
Not sure if it will be socket 939 or 754.
Looks like it could be on socket 939 with dual channel memory if they are starting it that early. Otherwise 754 with single channel.

 

[hyenolie]

alright dammit ive had enough, there needs to be a paintball team assembled, Intel vs AMD, and we need to get it over, loosers buy the winners product for 1 year.

 

[Asus]

Here is a great review off Anantech reviewing 3000+.
This is the second review that I have read that using the Asus SK8V (VIA K8T800) board for FX51 as well.
This was the first.
Great improvement on the FX51 with this new Asus board.

 

[Asus]

Xbit Labs Athlon 64 3000+ Review

Well, let’s cast a glance at the price-list. The official price of AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processors is $218. It means that this CPU is positioned as a competitor to Pentium 4 2.8GHz, which is selling for the same money, according to Intel’s official price-list. However, as we saw in the tests, Athlon 64 3000+ can outperform even faster Intel CPUs in most benchmarks. We can also state that Athlon 64 3000+ is faster than Athlon XP 3200+. This way, it definitely means that this processor is one of the best buys in its price category from price-to-performance point of view.