AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and FX-53: The First 939 CPUs
by Derek Wilson on June 1, 2004 12:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
OpenGL Performance
Quake III Arena
As has been mentioned before, these Q3A numbers are so high because I had been using vertex lighting which shows slightly different characteristics than lightmap lighting. In a separate 939 motherboard review, we will be seeing Quake III numbers using the lightmap settings. In this case, however, we can see that the P4 EE parts are again raining on the AMD parade, though the socket 939 CPUs' performance is nothing at which to scoff.
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
This ET benchmark uses the radar file from 3d center with the settings on the default for high quality graphics. Here we see the 939 processor performance much higher than the counterparts on other platforms. The "FX-55" just seems to jump ahead even at the top of the performance heap.
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Jedi Academy seems to hit a video card bottleneck at the performance levels pushed by these processors. Our benchmark suite is based on the Radeon 9800 Pro 128, but an NVIDIA card might have been a better card to show this (or any other) OpenGL based benchmark as NVIDIA cards traditionally perform better under OpenGL.
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gherald - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Search for 939 on newegg.com folks, you will be pleasantly surprised! Now if we could just find a motherboard...I had been hopping this launch would bring the 754 prices down a bit to, say, $220 for a 3200 and $350 for a 3400, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen quite yet what with 939 starting out at $500 for the 3500 and $700 for the 3800... *sigh* ... more waiting... perhaps prices will come down by the time true PCIe motherboards are availeable.
amdfanboy - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Go AMD !!nserra - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
"Everything here is graphics card limited even at 1024x768, but perhaps in the near future when we upgrade the video card we use in CPU and motherboard tests..." i have said this at xbit site and I say it here again!What about lowering games resolution and details it may help! There is a detail level in almost every game, it may help. You are testing a processor not the video card! I don't want benches in a processor review that limit the differences between processors.
fx53 35 fps vs xp3000+ 34fps, what a difference!
JGF - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
#22 while I certainly agree these new prices are too high I dont agree with the wholesale gutting of prices that you're recommending. AMD deserves some decent margins, they shouldnt have to give their product away all the time. Thats unhealthy business and has really hurt amd in the past. I want a healthy amd and for that they are going to need some fatter margins on some sku's.RyanVM - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Found a typo on page 13: "Winstones hare usually very static..." should be "Winstones are usually very static..."XRaider - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
What the heat issues with these newer AMD cpu's? I believe I read on that French site that the new AMD's are putting out alot of thermal wattage! 100+ Can anyone confirm this? I believe the P4 3.4 puts out around 102 - 104 watts! That's alot.AtaStrumf - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
I found a couple of typos if anyone would care to correct them:p.13
Workstation performance is more sensitive to memory bandwidth, and we do see a wider range in variation among the --3.2GHz-- (THAT WOULD BE 2,2GHz) processors in SPECviewperf.
The pattern was the generally the same fastest to slowest of 939-949-754 (THAT WOULD BE 939-940-754)
p.14
Since we have found the performance of the Dual-Channel Socket 940 and the Single-Channel 754 to be close when hey (THEY)ran...
Anyway these new S939s suck a$$. Well actually their prices do. Here's what I suggest: retire Athlon XP socket A, introduce it as Socket 754 but only higher models, price 20% up, bring S754 down 33% and S939 down 50%, retire FXs. These prices now are insane.
AMD are you listening? Of course not.
Viditor - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
"i'll be getting a Dual Channel for sure when the arrive. Pair that with a nice new X800 XT from ATI and i'll be sitting pretty with the flexibility of upgrading for awhile"Horses for courses I guess...I'll be getting one too, but I think I'm going nvidia because they appear to have a better handle on 64bit drivers...
JMHO
vedin - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Sure would be nice if they released something more along the lines of a 3000-3300+ for 939 this year. Maybe then my brother can finally be nice and justified with an upgrade without having to spend a lot.Icewind - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Hmmm, well i'll be getting a Dual Channel for sure when the arrive. Pair that with a nice new X800 XT from ATI and i'll be sitting pretty with the flexibility of upgrading for awhile.Thanks again AMD, im anxious to get out of this P4 setup I have now.