I have been trying to find benchmarking to give me an idea how my P4 2.6ghz chip compares to the Athlon 64 chips (i.e. 3000+ or 3200+).
Besides being 64bit, how much of a performance difference should I expect to see if I switch to the Athlon 64. I'd likely go with a MSI K8N Neo4 SLI motherboard, 1gb ddr ram, and the NVidia 7600GT video card.
My current ATI Radeon 9600XT just died so I'm not sure if it makes sense just to go with an ATI Radeon X1600 pro AGP and keep the P4 2.6ghz or should I just make the switch to the Athlon 64? I could also just upgrade the P4 to a 3.0e or 3.2e as well.
Do you have the 2.6 with 533FSB or 800FSB?
What motherboard do you have? dual channel?
I recently upgrade from a 2.8G 533fsb single channel setup to 3.2G 800fsb dual channel setup, the dual channel memory and 800FSB made a noticeable gain in performance. For what this computer is used for it will be fine for sometime for me.
Thanks for the info regarding the CPU chart. It's interesting because there is a performance difference with some applications running better with the P4 and others running faster with the Athlon 64, primarily games.
I have a MSI 865PE Neo2 motherboard which is a dual channel motherboard. The P4 is actually a 2.4ghz 800FSB overclocked to 2.6ghz.
From the CPU chart, it doesn't appear that either the 3000+ or 3200+ offer a huge difference over my current P4 other than with games. The only game I play is World of Warcraft and that doesn't seem to be CPU intensive.
The advantage I could see with going the Athlon route is that the MSI K8N Neo4 supports the X2 processors so there's plenty of room for growth in the future. Also, the PCI-express bus is faster than AGP and AGP cards will likely dwindle out of production eventually. On the other hand, I'm only going to have to pay $130 for a Radeon X1600 pro card and can use my current equipment rather than investing in a new motherboard and a new CPU.
Thanks for the info regarding the CPU chart. It's interesting because there is a performance difference with some applications running better with the P4 and others running faster with the Athlon 64, primarily games.
The advantage I could see with going the Athlon route is that the MSI K8N Neo4 supports the X2 processors so there's plenty of room for growth in the future. Also, the PCI-express bus is faster than AGP and AGP cards will likely dwindle out of production eventually. On the other hand, I'm only going to have to pay $130 for a Radeon X1600 pro card and can use my current equipment rather than investing in a new motherboard and a new CPU.
Traditionally, Pentium 4 has always been better than the Athlon 64 in applications outside of games which includes media creation, and especially media encoding. The Pentium 4 single core wins without a doubt. However, when looking at dual core CPUs the Pentiums advantage disappears entirely. The Athlon X2 are better than the Pentium 4D at almost all benchmarks across the board.
The Athlon 64 other advantage is that consumes less power than a Pentium 4. Before the 65nm Pentium 4 came out the Pentiums comsumed at least twice as much power as a comperable Athlon 64. With the release of Presler, P4 only consume about 50% - 60% more power than the Athlon 64. More power also means more heat so Athlons are much easier to cool and can mean less fan noise as well.
Intel's Conroe should bring performance back to thier side, at least based on the preliminary benchmarks. The 65nm Conroe should also run far cooler than the 65nm Presler. Best guess, they should run about just as hot as the 90nm Athlons, or less since it is partially based off of the Pentium M.
Let's see, beside the fact that it transfer twice the amount of data during the same clock cycle than a 32bit one, it has a faster FSB, built in HyperTransport and memory controllers...
the AMD64 will make your computer faster.
(otherwise why would Intel be moving to 64bit too?)
Also today's Athlon 64's are not the 3000+ or 3200+, but the X2's (dual Cores) and FX's
(the 3000+ is more than a year old)
If you want to upgrade, get a 939 socket motherboard and the X2 3800+
-newegg prices:
Let's see, beside the fact that it transfer twice the amount of data during the same clock cycle than a 32bit one, it has a faster FSB, built in HyperTransport and memory controllers...
the AMD64 will make your computer faster.
Errr, sorta like running 64bit code like I said? He was asking if 64bit CPUs would make his PC run faster, which they won't unless he's running 64bit software.
And the FSB and HyperTransport have nothing to do with AMD64, that's just new tech on the new chip.
Errr, sorta like running 64bit code like I said? He was asking if 64bit CPUs would make his PC run faster, which they won't unless he's running 64bit software.
And the FSB and HyperTransport have nothing to do with AMD64, that's just new tech on the new chip.
Actually, I asked about the P4 vs Athlon 64 excluding the 64 bit part. I chose the Athlon 64 because if I was going to switch from the P4 and a 865PE motherboard, I'd go to the 939 motherboard which is compatible with the Athlon 64, FX and X2s. I was planning on spending the least amount possible so the Athlon 64 would be the chip to go with even though it's not the current technology.
Therefore, what I was asking is whether an Athlon 64 3000+ or 3200+ setup would provide a performance boost over my 2 year old P4 2.6 setup, excluding the 64bit part. IE, if I'm playing WoW or using Photoshop, etc. does it make sense to go with the Athlon 64 or just leave it at the P4. The main incentive for change was really the video card issue because better cards are avaible for PCI-e than for AGP.
For my needs, I probably could just go with an ATI agp card and try to upgrade the PGA478 chip cheaply in the future, but since starting this thread today, I have realized that I could donate my current setup to a family member and do a complete upgrade for myself. Perhaps the X2 3800+, a MSI K8N Neo4, and a NVidia 7600gt would be the way to go.
As I understand it, the 7600gt easily outperforms the x1600xt for about the same price.
I would wager to say that 99% of the people with AMD 64's do NOT run 64 bit operating systems... but the people that do own AMD 64's all have that option. For most of us the 4 GB memory limit still isn't an issue and driver support under Windows XP 64 Bit is a bit spotty... in your comparison between the two processors it's really a non-issue.
I think that you should go for the AMD 64 3200+ socket 939. I have a similar pc like you with 2.6ghz 800 fsb. My mobo was fried... luckily I have warranty on it at Fry's. They let me change my entired pc from a p4 2.6ghz to a AMD 3200+ 64. I would say that the performance wise, the AMD beats the 2.6ghz. There are a lot of other things that the 2.6ghz beats the AMD but those are usually in the video/music and stuff editting. But it doesnt beat the AMD 3200+ by a lot. On the other hand, the AMD is very good at gaming. I was playing source with double the resolution + fps vs my 2.6ghz. It is up to you to decide, but i would recommand getting the AMD 3200+. Its good for gaming and you can overclock it easily to 2.5ghz from stock 2.0 with stock heatsink
Do you have the 2.6 with 533FSB or 800FSB?
What motherboard do you have? dual channel?
I recently upgrade from a 2.8G 533fsb single channel setup to 3.2G 800fsb dual channel setup, the dual channel memory and 800FSB made a noticeable gain in performance. For what this computer is used for it will be fine for sometime for me.
The AMD64 also provides enhanced security via DEP (data execution Prevention) on WindowsXP which prevents damaging program, like virus and worms, from being executed; it's only available to 64bit CPU's
(try to enable it: -Control Panel - System - Advanced - Performance - Data Execution Prevention)
If you are going to stick with your current system, you should be able to overclock it more. I have heard of 2.4 Northwood C core CPUs going close to 290fsb which would almost be 3.5GHz. I have a 2.8C @ 3.5GHz and it is pretty fast. BTW I have the Sapphire X800GTO unlocked to 16 pixel pipes.
