AMD64 3000 Venice vs Intel 630 EMT64

[kozaki]

Hi everynone

Just sold my Athlon 1800 @ 1700 for a nice price, looking for the best 64-bit platform replacement for <500EUR. Running Internet + encoding + f@h + coding apps (very very few games) on Linux 32-bit, will shift for 64-bit.

Allready have 2 x 512 DDR400 Corsair Value select that i'll use in this new config (so, no DDR2), as well as monitor, keyboard and NEC DVD burner. Everything else will be needed.

I was waiting for the moment i could afford a nice A64 3000/3200 Venice... Now my retailer told me Intel 630 EMT64 platform will cost just the same than that.
Thereafter I searched on how do those CPUs perform when running mentioned apps.

anandtech shows that <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2389&p=12" target="_new">P4 630 EMT runs a little bit faster than A64 3500+ for encoding, and for Multitasking</A>.

Now, what would you recommend to buy between those 2 CPUs for such a use (remember I have very few money so will have to go for a cheap MB or tower) ?

Looking forward hopefully )

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[RichPLS]

Since the 630 uses DDRII go with the Athlon and re-use your memory for the best deal.

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

You could go with the P4, I have one but don't use it because I actually pay my electric bill.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[kozaki]

First, let me point out that DDR2 is not necessary to go for the Pentium 630 64-bit.

hi hi! Crashman you're right, as one would pay for at least 71 W more an hour (at full load) if one goes for the P4 630 (Anandtech's mesured power consumption is 214W for the 630 but 146W for a 3500+ which is still a Winchester core if i remember correctly).
That's not such a huge difference on our pay bill, but I'm taking it seriously right from the beginning.

As for traditionnal benchmarks, I can't give them a lot of credit as I barelly never open a single application (whatever it is)... or that would be to benchmark it ^o^. More accurate situation is working on some code while multi-tabbed browsing + encoding audio &/or video in the background.

There's a nice <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2463&p=7" target="_new">Multitasking benchmark on Linux 64-bit with AMD & Intel CPUs (anandtech)</A>, who shows very little difference beetween single core CPUs...

So that's it, <b>I should go with AMD 3000 or 3200</b> (depending if i go for a mobo as cheap as the <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20050916/index.html" target="_new">great(?) ASRock 939Dual-SATA2</A> or a more expensive one).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Just a few lines (can't resist)from this last Multitasking bench : some good news for 64-bit Linux user :
<i>"This benchmark is essentially exactly like Anand's original benchmark but we added more web page windows. We are using additional instances of FireFox to really put a strain on the system since we were particularly pleased with the results of this benchmark.

1. Open FireFox 1.0.4 and load 10 web pages
2. Open XMMS and start playing a Nine Inch Nails CD ripped to Ogg
3. Open Thunderbird
4. Import 130MB saved mbox and begin timing the import
5. Bring the FireFox windows to the foreground

Even with additional instances of FireFox, <b>the import times are much faster than the Windows counterpart of this benchmark.</b> Granted, the Linux machines are not running Anti-Spyware nor Norton Anti-virus as in the original benchmarks either. </i>

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[P4Man]

>Even with additional instances of FireFox, the import times
>are much faster than the Windows counterpart of this
>benchmark

No wonder..
Lookout! Express only importing like 1 or so mails per second on such hardware shows only thing: that code SUCKS, or at least it wasnt written to perform. Using it as a benchmark is therefore pretty idiotic. Its clearly *very* unoptimized code, and moreover, no one cares about its performance, since no one ever imports mails from PSTs.. (why would you, as you can instantly open the PST file itself..?!), let alone do so on a regular enough basis that they would actually care how it performs.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[kozaki]

P4man, yes it's pretty unoptimized code.
which *is* what I use in real day-to-day life.

Those 5 Multitasking tests are alltogether (dvd rip, high DL, etc.) are *way* closer to what I actually do with my (Linux) box, than those Sandra/Winstone/3DSMax/UT4 & other "synthetic" benchs on a 32-bit Win OS with no other program running in the background...

/me buying A64 Venice (E3 stepping !) box 2morrow, that I plan to o/c a bit (on air).
Which components do you think i should go for ? (Price are those from my favorite retailer, may go down a bit

CPU
- A64 3000+ ... : 160 EUR
(or A64 3200+ ... : 200 EUR)
MB
- ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 with AGP and PCIe ... : 77 EUR
(or K8NF4X socket 939 nFORCE4 ... : 90 EUR)
(or Chaintech VNF4 (Ultra Zenith VE?) ... : 95 (110) EUR
(or DFI NF4 Infinity ... : 115 EUR)
CASE & PSU
- ATX 450W 20+4pin w/ 12Omm fan ... : 50 EUR
HD
- Maxtor 120 Gb 8Mo ... : 90 EUR (will get a second HD ASAP)
GPU (really not the priority for now)
- GeForce 6200TC 128MB DVI+TV OUT Rétail ... : 69 EUR
(or any nVidia AGP 128MB w/ ASRock 939 ... : 40 EUR)

TOTAL price ... : just under 500 EUR (3200+ / ASRock 939Dual, or 3000+ / Chaintech VNF4)

Any consideration would be appreciated, especially about which of the A64 to buy, chipset & Case/PSU !

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[kozaki]

wusy > having learned quite a bit while reading some of your really impressive number of advices, i'd hardly take what you say as an offense (at least will I try to understand why you would "offense").
"<i>Asus + AMD = Prescott</i>" i'm not sure to get it. Only thing I know is Asus mobos receive ambivalent feedbacks from Linux users.
Would your advice be kind of : go for 'Chaintech VNF4' rather than for 'ASRock 939Dual-SATA2' (knowing I don't plan to spend >500 EUR) ?

I may have wrote it unclearly, as English is obviously not my primary language
Just wish to point out that some of <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2463&p=4" target="_new">thoses Multitasking Scenarios</A> (1: DVD Transcoding, 2: File Compression, 4: DVD burning ; Gaming Benchmark 1: Heavy Downloading) are much closer to what i do on a daily basis, than most of FPS/synthetic/3DRendering benchmarks.

Since both single core A64 & P4 EMT64 CPUs show about the same perf in there, & should both o/c quite a bit, I'll go for AMD, which appears to me a better deal than the Intel.

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[kozaki]

wusy > neither am I big dog Cies supporter.
Why Sad ? Where's Asus here ?
/me no smart enough.
you say sometimes as much sybillin as Delphy's Oracle from Antic Greece.

--

Will go for AMD64 3000+ E3,
NF4 mobo (like Chaintech VNF4 or DFI Infinity) or ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (to put un expensive agp card & upgradable to M2)
smallest PCIe nVidia card (or agp if i go with ASRock Dual)
nicest Case & PSU I can (Textorm 974MB Alu 380W or Sonata II 450W would be great)
Hitachi SATA 7200trs/min (Gb depends on what's remains in my pocket)

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[HardWareBoss]

You don't get your electric for free?

 

[Crashman]

You should have seen what kind of load I was pulling when I lived at the university!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[HardWareBoss]

Using lots of the good stuff.