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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Insomniac - Wednesday, January 7, 2004 - link
DAVIDS: Those are real important numbers. I know my favorite applicatiomn is Sandra and game is 3DMark...Seriously, those are just theoretical. It's nice to know what a processor CAN do, but it is much better to see what it ACTUALLY does.
Insomniac - Wednesday, January 7, 2004 - link
Thanks Jason!DAVIDS - Wednesday, January 7, 2004 - link
It seems like Anandtech chose to ignore certain benchmark tests like Sandra or 3Dmark where the FX will clearly outclass the 3400+. If you look at the benches done by Amdzone, the FX annihilates the 3400+ in any test involving memory bandwidth.mkruer - Wednesday, January 7, 2004 - link
Last time I checked the "NewCastle" core was suppose to have a new memory controller, that would allow for dual channel. This core is not the NewCastle it’s just AMD pulling some of their under spec’ed chips disabling 1/2 the cache and re-branding it as a different model. Usually I would have a huge issue with this, but after looking at a bunch of benchmarks, I see the 1/2 the cache is not a big hindrance at all. All the information that I have and seen says the NewCastle core will be the 130nm equivalent of the Paris core, that’s it.But on top of that what I am surprised about was no mention that the AMD64 is handy caped at the moment. I am sure once 64-bit OS comes out and 64-bit Apps are available all the “multimedia” wins that the Intel chips currently have will instantly flip. Rule of thumb says that “multimedia” will benefit the most from the increase in bits, and in the case of 3DSMAX don’t be too surprised if you see 100%+increase in performance. Don’t believe me take a look at the LAME encoding on 64-bit OS with 64-bit lame.
mkruer - Wednesday, January 7, 2004 - link
destaccado - Wednesday, January 7, 2004 - link
well at least he didn't publish anything until page 2 this time :)raskren - Wednesday, January 7, 2004 - link
Please don't feed the trolls.CRAMITPAL - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
I must ask the obvious because it clearly escaped most folks here. Do you think AMD would release the 3400+ and kill FX51 sales and profits if it didn't have an FX53 ready to roll next month when Pisscott the Flame Thrower paper launches??? You folks must think this is AMD's first day on the job or something. You may recall AMD is the same company who made the PIII obsolete (4) years ago with the launch of Athlon and AMD made the Piss 4 and Xeon obsolete (6) months ago with Opteron/A64...If only you knew! :>))
TrogdorJW - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
Hey, is it just me, or is the Intel system rather handicapped by running on an Intel D875PBZ motherboard? From what I've seen on benchmarks, that board routinely finishes 2 to 10% slower than the top enthusiast boards. Given that Anandtech in the past has praised the Asus P4C800 (and P4C800-E), not to mention the A-Bit IS7 and IC7-MAX, why use the standard Intel 875 motherboard?No, it wouldn't help the P4 win the overall title. But it would have been a more accurate portrayal of the top performance we can expect from the systems. A 5-10% increase on several of the benchmarks would have closed the gap between A64 and P4.
The end result, of course, is that the 3400+ still beats the best P4s in games and scientific work. With office type applications, it's probably pointless to argue for one or the other, since they're so fast. And the P4 still wins on 3D rendering and media encoding.
So it's not a really major flaw, but I still have to ask: Why? Did you really have no other P4 enthusiast motherboards available? And yet you had an Intel motherboard. Seems a little odd, at best. It's the type of thing that makes people wonder.
edub82 - Tuesday, January 6, 2004 - link
The message is clear!!! AMD and Intel both offer great CPUs at similiar price points.