Date:
Monday , May 31, 2004
Author:
Kyle Bennett
Editor:
Cliff Murphy
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AMD 939-pin CPUs

The AthlonFX loses 1 pin and the Athlon64 gains 185. We evaluate the new Athlon FX-53, 3800+, 3700+, and 3500+. We compare Intel's 3.4EE and legacy CPUs as well.

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New Athon64s

Along with the 939-pin FX-53 that is introduced today, we are also seeing three Athlon64 branded CPUs. The new Athlon64 3500+ and 3800+ CPUs are 939-pin CPUs while the new Athlon64 3700+ is a socket 754 CPU. Here is a quick chart to give you reference.

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Of course it is very interesting to note that our FX-53, 3800+, and 3700+ share identical clock speeds. The differentiations come in the form of varying L2 cache or the lack of dual channel memory. Also included above are our Intel CPUs that we will be using in our evaluation.

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Also worth mention is that while the AthlonFX is leaving behind its Opteron socket heritage, it is also departing ways with its ceramic substrate. Now it will have an organic substrate like the Athlon64.

Test Setup

AthlonFX-53, Athlon64 3800+, Athlon64 3500+, - Asus A8V Deluxe (VIA K8T800Pro w/ 4.51 Hyperion Drivers), 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair XMSDDR400Pro DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI 9800XT (ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers), 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.

Athlon64 3700+ - MSI K8N Neo (NVIDIA NF3 w/ 4.24 Forceware Drivers), 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair XMSDDR400Pro DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI 9800XT (ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers), 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.

AthlonXP 2400+ 133MHz System bus - ABIT NF7 (NVIDIA NF2 w/ 4.24 Forceware Drivers), 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair XMSDDR400Pro 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 3.4GHz, Pentium 4 3.4GHz Prescott, Pentium 4 2.4C - Intel D875PBZ (i875P w/ 5.1.1.1002 Intel Inf Drivers ), 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair XMSDDR400Pro DDR400 (2,3,2,5), ATI 9800XT (ATI Catalyst 3.8 drivers), 40GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD, Windows XP w/SP1 and DX9B.

Memory Bandwidth

SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth Benchmark

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The AthlonFX numbers come as no surprise as we have seen synthetic measures close to this in the past, although not quite this high due to the impact of registered DIMM latencies. What is worthy of your attention is the gap between the 3700+ and the 3800+. This of course shows the huge amount of bandwidth that has been afforded to our 939-pin Athlon64. This again comes at the price of it losing half of its L2 cache. Even though the benchmark looks great, what does extra bandwidth mean in real life applications?