Athlon 64 3400+ Reviewed

SpinnerBait writes "Unlike the Athlon 64 FX-51, this new 3400+ rated Processor, has a 64 bit memory interface, with its integrated memory controller, drops in at several hundred dollars less than an FX-51 and is also clocked at 2.2GHz. It gives a P4 3.2GHz Canterwood based machine a run for its money too, as this review with benchmarks at HotHardware reports. And where is Prescott? Fortunately for AMD, it's a bit tardy to market and this will give this new Athlon 64 speed bin time to take a firm hold."

Comments

Pentium Vs. P4

[wowbagger]

Well, in all my testing of running 16 bit apps, a Pentium I outran a similarly clocked P4 by a healthy margin - so obviously the Pentium is a better chip, right?
</sarcasm>

Seriously - For a period of time the A64 will be running mostly 32 bit apps (at least in the Windows world), and so it is fair to benchmark its performance against 32 bit apps. But I cannot help but wonder how much P4 tweaking all those apps had, and how much A64 tweaking they did not have.

Also, the memory performance tests are, to my mind, somewhat questionable as well, as different CPUs even within the Pentium line have different memory access behavior - code that will be bus limited on a P4 might not be bus limited on a P3.

I am not saying the comparisons are not useful, but I am saying that they don't tell the whole story. Let us see some benchmarks wherein the A64 is running code that is written for the A64 - using the extra registers and so on.