Date:
Tuesday , January 06, 2004
Author:
Kyle Bennett
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Athlon64 3400+

We pit the A64-3000+, 3200+, 3400+, AFX-51, P4 3.2GHz, P4EE 3.2GHz, and AthlonXP 3200+ head to head.

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Test Setup

Athlon64 3400+, A64 3200+, A64 3000+ - MSI K8T Neo (VIA K8T800 w/ 4.51 Hyperion Drivers), 1GB (2x512MB) Kingston PC3500 HyperX DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI 9800XT (ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers), 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.

AthlonFX-51 - Asus SK8N (nForce3 150 w/ 3.13 Forceware Drivers ), 1GB (2x512MB) Muskin DDR400 ECC Registered DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI 9800XT (ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers), 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.

AthlonXP 3200+ - Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe (nForce2 Ultra 400 w/ 3.13 Forceware Drivers), 1GB (2x512MB) Kingston PC3500 HyperX DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI 9800XT (ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers), 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.

Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.2GHz, P4 3.2GHz - Intel D875PBZ (i875P w/ .1012 Intel Inf Drivers ), 1GB (2x512MB) Kingston PC3500 HyperX DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI 9800XT (ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers), 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.

SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth Benchmark

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Keep in mind that our Athlon64 CPUs are single memory channel reliant, while the AthlonFX and Pentium 4 CPUs take advantage of dual channel memory subsystems. Also this is a synthetic benchmark and while it is a good diagnostic, you will see how little it can mean.

dBpowerAMP Music Converter

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This test shows the results, measured in seconds, of how long it took to convert a ripped Frank Zappa .wav file to .mp3 format. The P4s with their higher core clock speeds certainly steal the crown on this one, but the newer Athlons are not far behind at all. Looking at the XP 3200 we can obviously see some of the core pipeline improvements that come with the K8. The AFX-51 and A64 3400 both share the same core clock rates as do the A64 3200 and 3000. You will notice their scores are identical as well.

DivX encoder w/ codec 5.05

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When it comes to encoding a .vob file (the movie 8mm) to a MPEG4 file using the DivX codec, things start to look a bit different than above. Obviously core clock is not king here and we are seeing cache, pipeline, and memory bandwidth coming into play. Our A64 3400+ shaves a full 14 minutes off the P4 3.2GHz time. Our A64 3400+ once again matches our much more expensive AFX-51 as well, and we see our inexpensive A64 3000 come in with very respectable numbers while outdoing both the P4 CPUs.