Final Words
The 4200+ is the least expensive of the new Athlon 64 Dual-Core processors, but $500 is only cheap compared to the other members of the X2 line which can cost as much as $1000 to own. The good news is the 4200+ performs very well on its own. It performs about like a similar speed single core in gaming and 3D workstation tasks, which means it is a little slower than the 4000+ in these heavily single-threaded tasks. If you are a gamer, and that is all you care about on your PC, then the Dual-Core processors will hold no advantage for you over the current single-core models. Performance does not suffer to any great extent compared to single-core, but you need another use for dual-core to tip the scales in the more expensive dual-core direction.When even a bit of multitasking comes into play, however, the 4200+ soars ahead, with significant performance advantages in the general performance PCMark2004 benchmark and an advantage in Multimedia Content Creation 2004. Media Encoding is one particular area where the x2 4200+ shines, outperforming the higher speed 4000+ by 41% at stock speed and by almost 71% when overclocked to 2.7GHz. The performance advantage for Dual-Core in Media Encoding is so significant that the X2 becomes a "must-have" if you do much media encoding.
These results are all while running in Windows XP, and there should be even further performance improvement in the 64-bit version of XP. Until there are useful benchmarks that really take advantage of the 64-bit OS we can only speculate on 64-bit performance, but the clean implementation of 64-bit by AMD should definitely yield performance advantages in 64-bit. The advantages should be similar to those AnandTech found for Opteron in the recent article comparing processors in 64-bit Linux.
The point of this article though is OVERCLOCKING the 4200+, and there is more good news there. Our early 4000+ processors only overclocked about 11 to 12% at stock multiplier. We do have a later 4000+ (that is likely an FX55 at heart) that overclocks about 18% at stock multiplier, which is the one we use in memory reviews. This 4200+, a new speed grade, is doing 22.5% at the start, reaching 2.7GHz on air. That's a 500MHz overclock, and is 300MHz higher than the fastest x2 you can buy (2.4GHz 4800+ and 4600+). This kind of overclocking performance makes the 4200+ a much more attractive option at the $500 you will pay for it - since it will likely reach higher performance levels that a stock 4800+.
You can likely do even better than we have if you use more exotic cooling. We have seen many reports on the web of the 4200+ reaching 2.8GHz or even 3.0GHz. We have also seen reports of the 4800+ reaching even a bit higher, so even better overclocks may be available with a 4800+. Anand is reaching 2.8GHz on air with the 4800+ he has been testing.
In the end the 4200+ appears to be a good-performing dual-core CPU with quite a bit of overclocking headroom. We reached 2.7GHz with a PC Health reported CPU temperature of 61 degrees C at 1.55V. 240 was a breeze at 1.45V, exceptionally stable for days on end, with processor temps generally below 50C with our air cooling. It appears an easy task to reach the highest levels of Dual-Core performance with the cheapest 4200+ if you are willing to overclock a little - and the 4200+ is up to the task.
The 4200+ running OC at 2.4GHz is equivalent to a 4600+, which brings us back to the question of which x2 Athlon 64 we would buy for ourselves. With the 4400+ sporting 1MB cache on each core, and only a few dollars more than the 512KB 4200+, we would suspect the 4400+ may well be the Dual-Core to buy - IF it overclocks as well as the 4200+. We don't have a 4400+ to test for ourselves, but given the performance of the 1MB cache 4800+ we have seen, we expect the 4400+ will likely overclock just as well.
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cryptonomicon - Friday, June 24, 2005 - link
#42 you are a moron. if their 4200 was really cherry picked, they would have it at 3ghz on air. i think this is valid. 2.6-2.7ghz is average ground on the DFI board with 90nm proc, and i see overclocking results every day. its not extordinary.end of story
DavidHull - Friday, June 24, 2005 - link
This article is crap. As long as Anandtech uses cherry-picked processors directly from the manufacturer, it is no more than hired advertising. What happened to journalistic integrity? Do you think that AMD is going to send you a randomly picked processor from the line? How about you test my processor that I bought from a retailer and they we'll talk about how good XX CPU really is.phaxmohdem - Friday, June 24, 2005 - link
#38, I was kind of pissed about that myself, however I have to wonder, lots of times the prices chip manufacturers quote, are for retailers at a quantity of 1000 chips or more. Perhaps that is why? OR perhaps too many geeks spooged prematurely and are willing to shell out extra cash on inflated prices for new and top of the line shiznat. Who knows. All I know is I"m stuck on socket 940 for a while :(Klaasman - Friday, June 24, 2005 - link
I have tested Battlefield2 with 1 gig of ram and 2 gig of ram. With 1 gig, it uses about 675mb. With 2 gig, it uses about 750mb. And still has 725mb in swap. It should use more but don't for some reason.miketheidiot - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
i agree with #17, rome: total war definately needs to be added to the game benchmarks, especailly for CPU tests. I'm not sure if its ram or processor limited, but it easily brings my 2.55ghz winchester and 1gig of ram to its knees in some of the larger battles.yacoub - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
Btw I like how the AMD chart shows the 4200+ sold at around $530 but if you check the RTPE, the cheapest is $575 plus shipping. =PSilthDraeth - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
I believe Val brings up interesting points. I would like to see benchmarks of identicly systems, except for the amount of RAM. This would prove if his perceptions have merit. I believe they do, but I do not have any benchmarks to prove it.Gatak - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
#35You are right that overclocking is highly random. All chips are made with lots of things in mind. For example different target models, performance, and not to forget minimum life expectancy.
If you overclock and stress the components you _WILL_ reduce the lifetime. Also, things like temperature also affect both achievable performance and lifetime. If you increase the temperature by 10c you would reduce the life expectancy by half!
The amount you can overclock is usually the margin you have against lifetime and stability.
fishbits - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
"We have asked AMD for a 4400+ and 4800+ for comparison"OK, non-overclocker questions about that: My understanding that the overclocking of a chip can vary from production run to production run, and even individual CPU to individual CPU. So wouldn't any CPU (or GPU etc) manufacturer test some of their CPUs and set aside a box full of the best overclockers to be sent to review sites, to give the impression that that's what the average one can achieve? I guess this kind of arrangement is a necessity though so that you have a sample in a timely fashion.
Granted in the real world there's money concerns, availability concerns, etc. But wouldn't it theoretically be better to buy a random one from a random vendor who doesn't know it's going to reviewers? If it is an issue in any way in OC situations, maybe it's worth noting early on that the sample was provided to the staff by the manufacturer, but then again perhaps that should go without saying.
val - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
***75-80 percent of available main...****