Affordable Dual Core from AMD: Athlon 64 X2 3800+
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 1, 2005 9:36 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Test
Our hardware configurations are similar to what we've used in previous comparisons. For this test, we focused on CPUs at or around the Athlon 64 X2 3800+'s $354 price point.AMD Athlon 64 Configuration
Socket-939 Athlon 64 CPUs
2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 EL Dual Channel DIMMs 2-2-2-7
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
ATI Radeon X850 XT PCI Express
Intel Pentium 4 Configuration
LGA-775 Intel Pentium 4 and Pentium D CPUs
2 x 512MB Crucial DDR-II 533 Dual Channel DIMMs 3-3-3-12
Intel 925XE Motherboard
ATI Radeon X850 XT PCI Express
Business/General Use Performance
Business Winstone 2004
Business Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:. Microsoft Access 2002
. Microsoft Excel 2002
. Microsoft FrontPage 2002
. Microsoft Outlook 2002
. Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
. Microsoft Project 2002
. Microsoft Word 2002
. Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003
. WinZip 8.1
Office Productivity SYSMark 2004
SYSMark's Office Productivity suite consists of three tests, the first of which is the Communication test. The Communication test consists of the following:"The user receives an email in Outlook 2002 that contains a collection of documents in a zip file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while VirusScan 7.0 scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0. Finally, Internet Explorer is used to look at samples of the web pages and documents created during the scenario."
"The user edits the document using Word 2002. He transcribes an audio file into a document using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6. Once the document has all the necessary pieces in place, the user changes it into a portable format for easy and secure distribution using Acrobat 5.0.5. The user creates a marketing presentation in PowerPoint 2002 and adds elements to a slide show template."
"The user opens a database using Access 2002 and runs some queries. A collection of documents are archived using WinZip 8.1. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet using Excel 2002 and are used to generate graphical charts."
Microsoft Office XP SP-2
Here, we see in that the purest of office application tests, performance doesn't vary all too much. 
Mozilla 1.4
Quite possibly the most frequently used application on any desktop is the one that we pay the least amount of attention to when it comes to performance. While a bit older than the core that is now used in Firefox, performance in Mozilla is worth looking at as many users are switching from IE to a much more capable browser on the PC - Firefox. 
ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0
ACDSee is a popular image editing tool that is great for basic image editing options such as batch resizing, rotating, cropping and other such features that are too elementary to justify purchasing something as powerful as Photoshop. There are no extremely complex filters here, just pure batch image processing. 
Winzip
Archiving performance ends up being fairly CPU bound as well as I/O limited. 
WinRAR 3.40
Pulling the hard disk out of the equation, we can get a much better idea of which processors are truly best suited for file compression. 
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masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
OMG OMG! CONSPIRACY! INTEL IS PAYING OFF TOMS!Staples - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
Seems video games are only benifiting from raw clock speed. The 2.4 single core A64 outperforms the X2 3800 every step of the way. I will be getting one when there is an X2 2.4GHz that isn't $1000.DigitalDivine - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
man, i wish amd would make a 2Ghz 256K (512k total) dual core proc.i mean, think about it.... l2 cache sizes for the athlon doesn't really dent performance (as seen in sempron's performance); it's cheaper for amd to produce and more economical to run/ power.
NullSubroutine - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
I dont know if it was includedin the AMD single vs Dual core comparsion, but I would have liked to have seen comparison of 3000+ (newcastle 2.0ghz, 512k cache...hmm i guess thats 754, what they got thats similar on 939, is that the 3200 they talked about?) vs the new 3800 x2, I could go look at old benchmarks, however sometimes they arent similar enough systesm (sometimes diffrent video, hd, benchmark settings).Hacp - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
Intel's next move should be to discount the 820 to 200 and the 830 to 275. That way, it can still stay competative with AMD in terms of Price/performance.Zebo - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
"The victory is clear and without debate, at the $300 - $400 price point, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is the dual core processor to get. "----------------
No offense Anand, but the 3800+ would have bent an $1100 840XE too but I guess you did'nt want to embaress Intel like that.;) Making 3800+ at any price point the 3800+ is the dual core processor to get. Just look in your forums -- people arn't buying the PentiumD's even at thier rock bottom discount prices. I've counted 44 X2's and one 820D and this is at the >$500 price points of 4200 and above!!! I expect 3800+ to literally explode in sales.
masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
> "Just look in your forums -- people arn't buying the PentiumD's even at thier rock bottom discount prices"Lol, what world are you living in? Intel is forecasting 2 million Pentium Ds shipped by the end of the year...the lowest independent forecasts are 500,000+ by year-end. Thats a lot more than the A64 X2 is going to sell this year.
> "but the 3800+ would have bent an $1100 840XE too but I guess you did'nt want to embaress Intel like that.;) "
Put down the crack pipe and step away from the keyboard.
Zebo - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
uh huh..http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/athlon64-x2/i...">http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/athlon64-x2/i...
Ouch! The $350 3800+ beats the $1100 840XE in 12/20 apps..How embarressing is that?
Don't even doubt me you just look stupid.
masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
> "Don't even doubt me you just look stupid. "God, the idiots really come out at night. The report you linked to is from May...the "3800" those benchmarks were run on isn't even the dual core X2...its the 2.4 GHZ single-core chip.
Thanks for a good laugh....feel free to keep posting.
DXM - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
I believe he meant to post this review showing the X2 3800 matching or besting the XE840 in all but a handful of tests:http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3...">http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3...
Aside from the snide comments, the gist of his assertion still stands.