AMD's Athlon 64 3400+: Death of the FX-51
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 6, 2004 4:35 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
With the Athlon 64 3400+ AMD has effectively killed any reason to shell out the extra bucks for an Athlon 64 FX; the 3400+ is basically as fast as the Athlon 64 FX 51 at a lower price point. Soon AMD will launch the FX53 which will restore some balance to their 64-bit universe but until then you can expect the FX line to take an even more passive role in AMD's marketing and in our lives.
AMD's Athlon 64 3000+ has provided us with an impressive show of force, especially considering its very low price point. If you look at the price/performance index values you'll see that the Newcastle based 3000+ is the only CPU able to offer a better value than Intel's Pentium 4 2.8C - the previous best-bang-for-your-buck title holder.
The overall performance picture hasn't changed much since we first looked at the Athlon 64; AMD is still the best bet when it comes to business/gaming/2D workstation either from a performance perspective or because of a superior price/performance ratio, while Intel offers the best in encoding and 3D rendering performance.
The one worry that is worth taking into account is the fact that AMD will significantly revamp their Athlon 64 line over the course of 2004 with the introduction of Socket-939 CPUs. Although AMD has committed to supplying Socket-754 and 940 CPUs throughout 2004, those looking to hold onto their motherboards and upgrade their CPUs beyond the next 12 months will want to wait until the Socket-939 platforms hit in the next few months.
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Pumpkinierre - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
#15 I have'nt heard AMD call the 3000+ Newcastle and other sites dont refer to it as such. Many sites say that the die size and transistor count is the same (193mm2, 105million) as the 3200+. hardtecs4u has cpz on the 3000 and 3400:http://www.hardtecs4u.com/reviews/2003/amd_athlon6...
http://www.hardtecs4u.com/reviews/2004/amd_athlon6...
Same family, same stepping, same revision and code name:clawhammer. I havent found out whether cache associativity has been cut down from 16 but that is a minor point.
If it looks the same and smells the same dont be prudish call it the same.
JohnrrDrake - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
I appreciate the VisualStudio compiler test.As a developer, I am much more interested how much compile time is saved instead of how many more FPS I get.
You may also consider throwing in a GCC compiler test (linux kernal is fairly typical).
KF - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
>reljam is right, if it isn't CPU limited,>why include it? Or why not lower the res?
Because it tells the truth about what people should expect? Gamers might like to know that they can use a slower (and cheaper) CPU. Very few people even have a graphics card as good as the testers used, so they don't even need CPUs like these. The real problem with benchmarks is how (or whether) they apply to real use. That makes null results like this important, IMO. Boring maybe. But useful.
Older games were included, and they show a CPU difference. I suppose that is because the newer games use the GPU for things that older games did with the CPU.
>But I think AMD may have shot themselves in the foot...
Companies that are not in a monopoly position need to put forth the best product they can at the time, or else get crushed by the competition. If that means some products are short-lived...well it's better than losing. A few months at the top is actually not bad the way things go. If you won't beat yourself, then the competition will.
I remember Intel putting out pin incompatible PPGA, FCPGA, and FCPGA2 PII/IIIs in quick succession, and then the totally incompatible P4. That was Intel scrambling with AMDs close competition.
KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
By AMD's definition, NewCastle is the same core as ClawHammer with half the cache. Regardless if it is a compeltely different core or not the performance is going to be the same between a 1/2 ClawHammer or a NewCastle.Kristopher
dvinnen - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
reljam is right, if it isn't CPU limited, why include it? Or why not lower the res?And are yall sure this is newcastle? Always figured it was a clawhammer with half the cache turned off. If you take the heat spreader off, it should be easy to tell. I seeing the bang-for-buck comparisons in a few weeks after the price drops start to take effect would be nice.
atir: they did some 64 bit to 32 comparisons in one of the opteron reviews.
atlr - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
Has anyone seen any performance comparisons of 32-bit versus 64-bit compiled programs?reljam - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
The AquaMark DX9, Halo (both benchmarks), and GunMetal are graphics limited benchmarks and are not adding any value to the review.Lonyo - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
Why run the games at 1024x768? I know it gives more real world performance, but if a game is limited by the graphics card, what use does the benchmark have in a CPU article (like the Aquamark benchmark numbers (not the CPU part though)Things such as UT2k3 are valid, and Comanche 4 woul dbe very good to look at differences (since unless I am mistaken, it used to be CPU limited most of the time).
Of course, time constraints may be the issue, but it seems in a way wasteful to do tests which are more GPU tests than CPU tests.
But otherwise, very good article in terms of non-gaming stuff, and it shows that the 3000+ is probably the best buy of the lot, good performance and a nice price.
EddNog - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
Well on NewEgg when U go to buy your CPU, check the memory (Single channel DDR, vs. Dual channel DDR), the number of pins/socket type (Socket 754, Socket 939) and most importantly, the cache size (512KB, vs. 1MB).-Ed
Icewind - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
I wish they would give the freaking newcastle Athlons a different name, cause how the hell are you supposed to tell the difference cause they have the samen damn name??Sometimething tells me the Athlon FX 939 pin next year will change things.