AMD Athlon 64 4000+ & FX-55: A Thorough Investigation
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 19, 2004 1:04 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Video Creation/Photo Editing
Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1
With the later releases of the Athlon XP, AMD began to offer fairly solid performance in Photoshop but with the Athlon 64 AMD managed to seal their fate - making AMD the platform of choice for Photoshop users.
The Top four spots in WorldBench's Photoshop 7 test are won by AMD, first by the 2.6GHz FX-55 and then by the three chips at 2.4GHz. As we've seen in the past, image editing doesn't benefit all that much from high bandwidth memory subsystems, so there's little benefit from a larger cache (0.3%) or from a dual channel memory setup (2.7%).
Despite its higher clock speed, the Pentium 4 560 takes a back seat to the Extreme Edition, justifying the EE's continued presence for a little while longer. Though with plans for a Pentium 4 4GHz scrapped, it seems like we'll be seeing a lot more of the Extreme Edition.
Athlon XP owners will find little reason to upgrade to an entry-level Athlon 64 for Photoshop use, as the two 3200+s manage to perform very similarly despite architecture and clock speed differences.
Adobe Premier 6.5
Prescott seems to do quite a bit for Intel here, with the 560 and 550 easily offering better performance than the 3.4EE, despite smaller caches. That being said, even the top of the line Pentium 4 560 can't outperform even the Athlon XP 3200+ in this test. While WorldBench does use an older version of Premier, it is one that is still widely used, making these results quite pertinent.
Once again we see very little need for the larger cache of the Athlon 64 4000+, but more of a tangible benefit from the move to Socket-939 from Socket-754 (6.7%).
AMD simply dominates this test; Premier users should know what platform is right for their needs.
Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator 1.5
While Premier is a wonderful professional application, consumers will prefer something a little easier to use. Enter: Roxio's VideoWave Movie Creator, a fairly full featured yet consumer level video editing package.
Intel has worked very closely with Roxio in the past, thus it's no surprise to see Movie Creator take advantage of the Prescott core as best as possible. The Extreme Edition still takes the crown, but the 560 and 550 manage to keep AMD's best at bay.
The Athlon 64 FX-55 is still within striking distance of the 3.4EE at only a 5% deficit, but the gap grows as we look at cheaper AMD solutions. Intel wins here with AMD in a close second.
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Live - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Splendid reading! This site is doing a great job right now. I really would love more of these very informative articles that help you so at seeing the big picture.A really helpful article.
Disorganise - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
I’m a bit disappointed by you inconsistency…The comparison with Intel over who wins….slightly inconsistent but no biggie.
What really is bad though, is the penultimate page – is socket 939 worth it?
I agree it is but…..
You’ve taking an identical chip and found it about 5% quicker than on socket 754. OK, no problem. But AMD have wacked a whopping 12% increase in rating, to 3800+ from 3400+. It doesn’t gel, the numbers don’t work.
The 3800+ is also more expensive than the 3400+ to the tune of about 250% here in Australia and about 220% over there in the U.S. a 5% increase in performance does not warrant a doubling in price.
Dave
at80eighty - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
way to go Anand...excellently comprehensive article.../waiting for those HDD articles you promised : p
SLIM - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Going along with what #6 said:Athlon 64 4000+ - 2.4GHz - 1MB - 128-bit
Athlon 64 3800+ - 2.4GHz - 512KB - 128-bit
Athlon 64 3400+ - 2.4GHz - 1MB - 64-bit <---should be a socket 754 3700+ right?
Athlon 64 3400+ - 2.4GHz - 512KB - 64-bit
Athlon 64 FX-53 - 2.4GHz - 1MB - 128-bit
SLIM
ViRGE - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
#12, even GPUs aren't going anywhere fast. There's still a shortage of something or other needed to make the Ultra/PE parts, and there isn't a planned refresh for 2004. ATI/Nvidia have another speed grade of RAM to jump to(1.6ghz GDDR3), and can die-shrink down to 90nm once TSMC gets there, but they're so close to CPUs right now, they're destined to hit the same wall too.Anand, someone has been a busy beaver.;-) That was a long, but well thought out and informative article; you've basically written the definitive CPU article for now until the multicores come out.
Tides - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Ah I read the conclusion wrong.Tides - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
why is this site putting down an amd performance gain and making excuses for intel at the same time.Doormat - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Its a shame the processor wars are coming to an end. I see dual core as neat, but a dud performance wise. It'll be another year or two before the GPU wars start to die out... hmmm..-CPU performance levels off
-HD capacity levels off
The only interesting stuff going on is GPU stuff.
dvinnen - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Best artical from Anandtech I've read in a long time. Good job Anand.skiboysteve - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
wait nevermind, you put your comments ABOVE the graphs. threw me off cause this isnt what you usualy do...