Athlon XP CPU Relative Speeds?

DuckTape

January 30, 2003 7:34:31 AM

Hello folks.

As far as Athlon XP CPU's are concerned, is there a speed at which above one typically stops seeing a significant, noticeable and beneficial difference?

1600 (1.4GHz), 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000, 2100, etc.

Is there much of a difference between 1600 and 2100?

Does it depend upon the applications used?

How about for programs like PageMaker, Photoshop, Illustrator and for digital audio and video editing programs?

How about for less "demanding" applications?

Your experiences and thoughts are very much appreciated!

Thanks much!
Glen

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nja469

January 30, 2003 12:22:14 PM

So far, the PR rating system has held up pretty well. Just going into the CPU guides you can see how well different athlon XP's perform, as well compare them to faster clocked pentiums. A 2800+ is going to offer more performance for "demanding" apps than say a 2400+ would. Even though megahertz isn't everything, still the faster it's clocked, the better overall (when comparing AMD CPU's to AMD CPU's, because comparing AMD to Intel, intel will be clocked much higher and AMD much lower offering sometimes equivilant performance).

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MeTaLrOcKeR

January 30, 2003 12:56:11 PM

Well my XP 1600+ Palomino overclocked to 2000+ speeds....i see anything NOTICEABLY faster....i can tell that photoshop opens a split second faster......

On my 1800+ T-Bred Oc'd - 2000+ i cant notice the difference that much at all..in games i cant notice the differece between my 1600+ system and my 1800+ system OC'd......

I think u start to notice something more when u jump by at least 3 speed grades....lets say from 2000+ - 2400+ or from 2400+ - 2600+ but thats cuz of the 333FSB......

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=13597" target="_new">-MeTaL RoCkEr</A>

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LancerEvolution7

January 30, 2003 2:10:54 PM

Take an a video file and encoded to the vcd mpeg 1 format, you'll notice the difference.

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xxsk8er101xx

January 30, 2003 2:18:28 PM

agreed

That and Maya rendering! Even just a difference of a 100 mhz make the difference from 2 days and 3 hours to just 2 days.

It took all night just to render a 12 second movie. Each frame took 2 minutes or more and there were about 160 frames. Can you imagine a movie with a 1000 frames? 100mhz faster sure would make a difference!

Life is irrelivent and irrational.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

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MeTaLrOcKeR

January 30, 2003 2:30:16 PM

I Saved 25 minutes ripping and encoding a DVD to divx ocing the 1600+ - 2000+ speeds....i agree with that....but on average just daily use.....whatever u wont notice the difference in like 15 FPS in games or that MS Word open 0.3 secodns faster etc....

Heavy encoding..video and audio..yes u will notice a difference......but even than does it justify the cost???even thoguh all athlons below 2400+ r relatively cheap in price...

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=13597" target="_new">-MeTaL RoCkEr</A>

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