.09 Athlon 64: Value, Speed and Overclocking
by Wesley Fink on October 14, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Overclocking Results and Heat
One of the most pressing questions that many are asking about the new 90nm processors is how they overclock. Will the die-shrink deliver the kind of headroom seen on the Intel Northwood chips when they were first introduced? Our first tests with the 90nm 3500+ were quite good, so we bought a 90nm 3000+ to see if results were comparable.| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | ||
| 90nm A64 3500+ | 90nm A64 3000+ | |
| Processor: | 2.2GHz 512k L2 Cache |
1.8Hz 512k L2 Cache |
| CPU Voltage: | Default (1.4V) | +8.3% (1.52V) |
| Cooling: | Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 Heatsink/Fan | Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 Heatsink/Fan |
| Power Supply: | OCZ PowerStream 520 | OCZ PowerStream 520 |
| Memory Timings: | 2.5-4-4-10 1T | 2.5-4-4-10 1T |
| Memory Voltage: | 2.75V | 2.8V |
| Maximum OC: | 2610 (+18.6%) 290x9 |
2610MHz (+45%) 290x9 |
As you can see, the 3500+ and the 3000+ both topped out at about 2.6GHz (anticipated FX55 speed) with default or modestly increased CPU voltage and air cooling. This is a decent overclock of about 20% on the 3500+, but the 3000+ reached the same 2.6GHz overclock from a much lower stock speed of 1.8GHz. This means that the new 90nm 3000+ overclocked an outstanding 45% with modest increases in CPU voltage.
The only real difference in overclocking the 3500+ and 3000+ in our tests was that the 3000+ required a little more CPU voltage and memory voltage to reach the same overclocks achieved with the 3500+. This 45% overclock is exciting, and it gives us reason to expect even better headroom possibilities when AMD gets the 90nm process tweaked. Since these two 90nm parts came from different sources and were purchased from dealers, we feel comfortable that they are representative of the 90nm chips available in the market. Overclocking results are never guaranteed, but these first results with AMD 90nm processors are full of promise. If the 90nm 3000+ performs this well in larger samples, it will become the darling of the Enthusiast community.
All Performance benchmarks were repeated at the highest overclock that we could achieve - 290x9.
The Overclocked Performance results are included in the Performance Comparison charts to show the performance headroom found with the new 90nm chips. For better comparison, results are also included for the fastest processors currently available from AMD (FX53) and Intel (560 - 3.6GHz).
Thermal Performance
AMD claims that their 90nm process generates less heat than the 130nm process and requires lower wattages. Of course, the heat that is generated is concentrated in a much smaller area than the larger 130nm die. We will not likely know the true impact of the 90nm shrink on heat dissipation until AMD produces their fastest CPUs in 90nm, so we decided not to run comprehensive heat tests until the faster processors were available in 90nm.We did check reported temperatures in the BIOS to get an idea of the temperature trends with the new 90nm process. At the same stock speeds, the 90nm and 130nm chips were showing the same CPU temperatures. There was neither improvement from the 90nm nor any indication of running hotter. Overclocked to 290x9, the 90nm parts were 1 to 5 degrees Celsius cooler than a 130nm FX53 chip clocked to the same 290x9. These results are not the objective tests that we will run on high-speed 90nm parts, but they confirmed that the AMD 90nm process appears to run at least as cool as current 130nm processors.
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Bugler - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Newegg Model#: OCZ4001024ELDCPER2-KItem#: N82E16820146890
OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel Kit 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail $281
Araemo - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
nevermind...It is only for sale in 1 gig packs of 2x512 right now, different part #:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?DEPA...
Araemo - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Also.. is that ram available in the retail channel? I wanted to look up the price, and found the part number(I believe) OCZ400512ELPER2However, this isn't on newegg, or pricewatch.
Araemo - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
#23 - WesleyIf you already have overclock results of a p4 from another article, how difficult would it be to include in the graphs? Or were those results using a different enough configuration that it is not an applicable comparison?(In which case, as a reader that loves Anandtech for your thoroughness, I would like to see an applicable comparison.)
All in all, good review. Not as overly wordy as some have been recently(Though I won't name names. ;P).
Bugler - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
With the 3500+ showing a 20% overclock and the 3000+ hitting a 45% overclock, it would be great to know how the 3200+ would overclock in this comparison.Wesley, thank you so much. Once again, another fine job.
PrinceGaz - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Further to my earlier comment, the default core voltage of all the Winchester-core 90nm A64 parts currently available is 1.4V, not 1.5V as indicated in the review. Its important this is corrected on the Overclocking page of the review as it is very relevant to the obtained results.I now see that you didn't actually measure the temperature under full-load conditions. Other reports suggest that the 90nm parts do run cooler when idle than the equivalent 130nm parts, but are hotter under full-load conditions due to the higher thermal density. They have been measured as using less power under full-load than the 130nm parts, but run hotter because that power is concentrated in a smaller core.
I'd be very interested to know just how hot that 3000+ got under full-load conditions (eg. running Prime95) when you were feeding it 1.6V instead of 1.4V, and had it clocked at the maximum of 2610MHz. If you were using the standard retail HSF, it may have been rather hot :)
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As for why the 90nm parts run a little faster than the 130nm parts, I found this post on the AMD forum. I don't know if the info is accurate, but it sounds reasonable:
Whether the 90nm process for the 3000+ to 3500+ runs cooler is still up for speculation to a degree. What will eventually be shown is that the TDP for these processors is lower than the current 130nm. (currently it is 89W TDP, the TDP for these three - when the information is released - is 67W).
In addition the 90nm A64 (DH8-D0) has these improvements over the 130nm (DH7-CG):
- improved DRAM page closing policy
- improved memory addressing with graphics cards using main memory (eg. integrated cards) as frame buffer
- memory controller power reductions (DDR receivers go off in default)
- memory power consumption reductions (CKE pins disconnect)
- second write combining buffer
- SAHF and LAHF instructions are now supported in 64bit mode
Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
#22 - I appreciate your suggestion, and we did overclock the Pentium 4 775 in our "Intel 925X Roundup: Creative Engineering 101" at http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2162.The highest stable overclock we could achieve with the P4 on air cooling was 3.92GHz (280x14) on the best overclocking 925X board. Others have achieved higher overclocks with water and phase-change cooling, and higher overclocks will also likely be achieved with those methods on the new 90nm Athlon 64 processors.
We will be looking at Pentium 4 overclocking again in the upcoming launch of some new and improved P4 processors.
thermalpaste - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
I am an AMD freak, and Im happy they launched the winchester. You should have, however overclocked the Pentium-4 also, just to compare the scalability of both the CPUs.I had read an article on somebody overclocking the pentium-4 to 6 Ghz. Though this was an unstable overclock, what this indirectly implies is that despite of have a 30-odd stage pipeline, intel may find it difficult to reach speeds in excess of 5Ghz using the 0.09u process...I expect a more thorough comparo soon.....cheers!
deathwalker - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
All the buzz in this article is about the O/C'ing capabilities of the new .90 die...personally im just as impressed or maybe even more so with the performance of the memory used in this testing. Having made that statement it is clear that the O/C'ing capability of the 3000+ version of this Proc. takes us back to the good old days of the Celery 300.Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
#11 & #16 - The memory brand is identified in the "Performace Test Configuration" on p.4 and the timings are in Overclocking table on p.5.The OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 and other top performing memory is tested on the Athlon 64 in "Athlon 64 Memory: Rewriting the Rules" at http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=222... Some memory in that review made it to DDR618 on A64, but DDR580 at 1T was the fastest 1T performance.