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Athlon Xp 3200+ 400FSB is Coming

SoDaLaS writes "Athlon 3200+ Coming: According to CNET The Athlon 3200+ with a 400MHz FSB is on the way in the next two weeks. It'll be interesting to see how well the processor overclocks at that high of a bus speed...it didn't seem to hamper the new 800MHz FSB Pentium 4, which many people were worried about too."

17 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. Finally.... by DarkBlackFox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    AMD can take advantage of DDR 400 for synchronous system performance. Expanded front side bus + more work per clock cycle= damn good performance. Great stuff.

    1. Re:Finally.... by shamilton · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Answer me this, where did this whole notion that P4s are somehow faster than AMD chips come from?

      Canadian dollars:

      1800, AMD: $95, Intel: $215
      2400, AMD: $160, Intel: $240
      2800, AMD: $349, Intel: $499

      That is, comparing the 1800+ to a 1.8 P4, etc. And yes, those AMD readings are usually pretty conservative. If you compare performance per tic, AMD continues to beat the living crap out of Intel, has since the K7, and likely will continue to do so for generations yet.

      Point 1: If you want a cheap CPU, an 1800+ for a hundred bucks (60 USD) is a damn fine deal. If you want to be loyal to Intel, that will buy you a 1.7 Celeron, which is comparable to a T-Bird 1333 of two years back.

      Point 2: If you want to shell out, then you are getting more bang for your buck by buying a high end AMD, although this point is a bit weaker as they tend to get closer in price.

      Point 3: If you REALLY want to shell out some coin, you could buy one of the really high end Intels, which pull ahead of AMD chips due to lack of an AMD offering in the same range. But then, if you are going to shell out, why not purchase a Xeon, or dual AMDs, or Sun hardware, or a data processing centre to run Quake? The scale is only relevant where you can actually compare the two, so in my opinion, this point is moot.

      This can all be explained if you consider Intel isn't so interested in making a great processor as it is making great fabrication processes, and patenting them. The processor is more of a testbed. Much like how id is mostly a technology company, but Carmack has said if they didn't make a game, they would end up missing things in the engine.

      --
      "[A] high IQ is like a Jeep; you will still get stuck, just farther from help!" --Just d' FAQs, c.g.a
  2. Overclocking by mrtroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Damnit why, everytime a new board comes out, overclocking is brought up.

    First, overclocking works decent for a few people, but is not available to the masses for several reasons including technical difficulty and noise issues

    Second, overclocking is kind of dumb (expecting 10000 evil replies for that, but listen first) because if the board really could safely go faster, the manufacturer would produce it that way, and sell it for more!

    Third, maybe everyone doesnt want their computer to sound like a jet is going off from the cooling needed to overclock, especially since as computers are getting faster, and more "stuff" is being put in smaller and smaller spaces, heat is increasing as well. Thats why mobos are coming with bigger fans, graphics cards are coming with giant fans that take a whole slot, etc.

    Now personally, I considered overclocking, fiddled with it, decided it wasnt for me, but I realize a small amount of people will do it. Cheers to them, but why can we not critically analyze a mobo without considering overclocking, which will benefit less than 1% of users! Lets look at the raw performance, and it should be sweet with this fat bus!

    --
    [I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
  3. This thing is gonna be HOT by checkyoulater · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I already have trouble cooling my XP1900 without having it sound like a jet engine. With a slow fan and decent heatsink, my CPU still sits around 48 degrees C. I'm afraid to think how hot this thing would be. How can anybody productively use a computer with a fan that is as loud as an engine idling?

    --
    Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
  4. Press Releases by rwiedower · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Analysts say it's too early to know how the new chips will rate against each other, with testing not yet complete.

    Yes, I know it's too early to know how the new chips will rate. Everyone should know this. It used to be that a PR blitz was timed for the launch of a product. Now it comes out well in advance. This, in turn, means that delays that could affect the delivery date have to be factored in. Next thing you know, we'll have helpful stories over a month in advance of launch with more helpful statements about how the chips haven't been tested yet.

    Yes, if the chips have already been produced and are filtering into distributors, this point is moot. I just wish more was made when the products emerged and less when it was all pie-in-the-sky hyperbole.

  5. Re:Overclocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think the point was that with the high FSB speed there would be little room to increase it. With current intel processors the only way to overclock is via the FSB, but this is not true for current AMD chips that come multiplier unlocked...

    Of course the highest end chips are never great overclockers, they are already quite close to the "edge".

    Current AthlonXP 1700+ on the other hand... cost me $70 and runs at 2500MHz.

  6. Re:Overclocking by DarkBlackFox · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If I'm not mistake, they affixed a heat spreader to the Opteron. What would stop them from/why wouldn't they slap one on the higher power Athlons? Seems to me that's what keeps the P4's "cooler," along with heatsinks of twice the mass... simple thermodynamic physics.

  7. AMD $500 CPU vs iNTEL $500 CPU Re:400 MHz, 800 MHz by Forge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hey. Marketing people love to trumpet all kinds of fantasy based figures when they talk about CPU spead.

    The troth is that the only CPU mesure that matters is how long dose it take to rip and encode a DVD to DivX (One of the few tasks that still taks hours.) or whatever application YOU run which YOU feal is too slow on whatever system you have now.

    And for comparison, Athlon 3200+ vs iNTEL 3.2 GHz is not what matters. What matters is iNTEL's $500 CPU vs AMD's $500 (or $100 CPU).

    --
    --= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
  8. is it just me? by wirefarm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    or did others stop caring a lot about speed somewhere around 1Ghz?

    --
    -- My Weblog.
    1. Re:is it just me? by shamilton · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed. I had the grandparent's mentality for three years, then recently used some extra cash to upgrade my 500 to an 1800 to play UT2003.

      The improvement in general system responsiveness was far greater than I had expected. Windows open faster, it's less evident that things are "drawn" instead of just appearing, much faster boot, etc.

      Also pleasant was reduced time waiting for compiles when making small code tweaks, waiting for photoshop filters, etc.

      You will never hit any sort of upper limit for CPU usage and just stop benefiting.

      --
      "[A] high IQ is like a Jeep; you will still get stuck, just farther from help!" --Just d' FAQs, c.g.a
  9. Re:400 MHz, 800 MHz by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Mhz is NOT a measure of throughput or performance. It has a very specific definition, Million cycles per second. Don't let them confuse the term and water it down until it is meaningless.

    --
    I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  10. Mmmm.... by foxtrot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The best thing about a 400 MHz FSB being available on an Athlon chip?

    The 333 MHz FSB chips will drop in price!

  11. Re:This is bad news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    10 Years ago you could do internet/email/word processing/spread sheets with just a 33MHz Intel 386 with 16 MB RAM. Today you need for the very same things a Pentium IV with 2 GHZ and 128 MB RAM.

    why? I can still do everything you say today with that 33mhz intel 386.

    I wasn't stupid and bought software just because it was there. when microsoft sells Office XP special edition 5 with beta-carotene does NOT mean you have to buy it.

    Hell, I can do everything you mention on a 286 with 4 users using it at the same time PLUS serve as a firewall and HTTPD server.

    just because someone is selling something does not mean you NEED it.

  12. man! by 0x12d3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Have I really put off the upgrades for that long? There are FSB's faster than my processor? The funny thing is there is so much latency loading a lot of the modern software you really don't appreciate it! Outlook XP takes just as long to load as OE did back in 97. The xfer speeds have definitely improved (a _lot_) but rendering websites takes as long if not longer than it did 10 years ago (unless yer a fellow dillo user!). I should quit complaining; I'm as thrilled about bus speeds improving as the next guy (I do a good amount of hw irq intensive stuff) but jeez, It would be nice if avg. joe could see the improvements too and not just those of us compiling kernels on the weekend. So much of the hype causes aunt Ethel to upgrade every year with no appreciable speed improvements. But then I guess auth Ethel's never heard of a front side bus...

  13. That's nice, but I'm sticking with Intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Sorry but too many negative experiences with AMD based systems. That's not to say AMD is at fault but their recommended chipsets are a little suspect *cough* VIA. I've had 4 Athlon based systems with massive failures in the mainboard (2 VIA based, 1 AMD760 and 1 SiS). Not to mention friends who have all had their own problems with these system. The other thing is that they run so damn hot, even with top-rated HSFs. I still have 2 up an running (nForce), it just seems to be hit or miss with these chipsets.

    Anyway I have an Intel P4 2.4 with an Intel Mobo and the thing is quiet, cool, fast, extremely stable in both Win2K and Linux.

  14. Re:This is bad news. by javahacker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    NASA doesn't use Intel 8080 processors in the shuttles. The computers they use were developed for the Apollo program, way before the Intel 8080 existed. They use them because they are simple enough to have provably correct operation, something not true for most processors. This is a quality that must be designed for in the processor, and is more difficult to achieve as the processor becomes more complex. Code quality has nothing to do with the decision. Their code is all assembler by the way, so your code quality is very high, and very expensive.

    Inpedendent studies show that in fact 73 percent of all "OOP" code is just imperative with C++ class bloat added.
    You mean it was crappy, non object oriented code, written by bad programmers! What a shocking notion! Anyone can write bad code in any language, it hardly takes any skill at all, which is the problem, lack of skill.

    And the faster CPUs gave rise to the OOP paradigm.
    OOP is simply a codification of what programmers were already doing, it is neither a magic bullet, or a terrible evil.

  15. Re:What price power? by mrtroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Good points, good sir, but look at what the mini itx boards are aimed towards. They are not for the heavy gamers. They are not for video encoders. They are for the majority of people who want a quiet, decently fast, quality mobo.

    --
    [I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]