How much faster will my 3500+ be than my 2.4c @3.4ghz?

[bill gates]

I just sold my 2.4ghz P4c that I had overclocked to 3.4ghz 1:1 with my A-DATA memory and I am wondering how much more performance I can expect out of my Athlon 64 3500+ which I will of course overclock. This will be my first Athlon 64 and I have pretty high expectations out of it. I will be using my same A-DATA memory which can do 295fsb stable. I realize it is not a really big upgrade but it didn't cost me anything to do it so I thought it would be nice to try out the A64. I will mostly use it for games so I assume it will be at least a little faster for gaming. Anyone have both platforms that can tell me if it is a lot faster?

[Cow2kie]

i'd say its gona do a lot better than that 3.4ghz... depending on the clock you get out of the 3500. My mobile barton outperforms my friends p4 @ 3.9ghz in games.

[Çhrist0ph]

even at stock, a 3500+ will destroy a P4@3.4 in most apps/games.....most likely even a P4@4ghz.

But if that a-data is high latency, you might want to look into some new ram.

[Mini]

Originally posted by Çhrist0ph
even at stock, a 3500+ will destroy a P4@3.4 in most apps/games.....most likely even a P4@4ghz.

But if that a-data is high latency, you might want to look into some new ram.

lol??? Show me a stock 3500+ destroying a P4@4Ghz...



Well i think you will get alot... It will probably not perform SO much better at stock since your mem is only 200Mhz... But if you OC it you are probably VERY far away from 2.4@3.4... The good way very far away :P

[Çhrist0ph]

well, i forgot to take into account the mem speed of the P4@3.4, but oc'd decently, any A64 can put a P4 to shame.

[bill gates]

Excellent, I am glad to hear that it will surpass my P4. Of course the memory bandwidth will be much less but thats o.k. I will be overclocking it using the thermallight XP-120 so I should get a decent overclock.


How crictical is the memory bandwidth? I know on my P4 it was faster than anything that Sandra had to compare with it but on the A64's it is always pretty low. Should I replace the memory with something that will do tighter timings, or will the Athlon be able to hit a high fsb? Also since I have never overclocked an Athlon64 before, is it better to have a high FSB with a lower multiplier or is t better to have a lower FSB with a higher multiplier? I really want to get this thing running as fast as possible without upping the voltage.

[Karnivore]

Originally posted by Çhrist0ph
any A64 can put a P4 to shame.

In the thread starters case it should be fairly easy for him to top the P4C performance...

However, don't think I would go quite this far with a statement.

[Çhrist0ph]

Originally posted by Karnivore

However, don't think I would go quite this far with a statement.


very true, but there are a lot of situations where an A64 can take out a P4 and vice versa.

[iskall]

What CPU-cooling are you using? If you're on air you may land @about 2600-2700 with a good stepping, and it will outperform a P4 in about all games.

[bill gates]

Originally posted by iskall
What CPU-cooling are you using? If you're on air you may land @about 2600-2700 with a good stepping, and it will outperform a P4 in about all games.

I will be using the Thermalright XP-120 with a 120mm Panaflo 120mm 92cfm fan. Also I will be using the new MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum which was the highest rated 939 board at Anandtech. I am still trying to figure out what the best chipset cooler is. I want to have the best of the best when it comes to air cooling and I just dont know what the best one is right now. The thermalright NB-1c cooler looks good but so does the Swiftech mcx-159. And then there is te microcool northpole kit. Any suggestions for the chipset cooling, anyone know which is the best?

[-=TriX=-]

Either of the mentioned ones will give you top performance. I prefer the NB-1C. It's what I used in my system--did an excellent job cooling the NB.

[bill gates]

Originally posted by -=TriX=-
Either of the mentioned ones will give you top performance. I prefer the NB-1C. It's what I used in my system--did an excellent job cooling the NB.

Cool thanks, I was leaning towards that one myself. What kind of a fan did you use with it. What size fans does it support? It looks like it would have to be a 40mm but I am unsure.

[legion]

Originally posted by bill gates
Cool thanks, I was leaning towards that one myself. What kind of a fan did you use with it. What size fans does it support? It looks like it would have to be a 40mm but I am unsure.

You won't be able to use either as they will clash with the gfx card.
The placement of the nvdia southbridge could've been better!

[bill gates]

I thought the chipset looked a little to close to the AGP slot. That really sucks.

[CrashOv3r1De]

I admit my stock 3400+ felt faster than my 2.4C @ 3.6ghz. Once I clocked it to 2.7ghz it destroyed my P4 3.2C @ 4.23ghz

[masterofpuppets]

Originally posted by Çhrist0ph
well, i forgot to take into account the mem speed of the P4@3.4, but oc'd decently, any A64 can put a P4 to shame.

Ahem, so your saying any crAp64 can put a p4 to shame? What about a p4ee or a p4 at 5ghz?

[Kalway]

Originally posted by masterofpuppets
Ahem, so your saying any crAp64 can put a p4 to shame? What about a p4ee or a p4 at 5ghz?

Who can afford either of those? I haven't seen a 100% stable 24/7 P4 at 5ghz either.

Be realistic man.

[GreyBeard]

Originally posted by bill gates
I thought the chipset looked a little to close to the AGP slot. That really sucks.

You might want to consider the Vantec Iceberq CCB-A1C NB cooler. While it is probably not quite as effective as the others mentioned above, it will fit under the video card and under a VGA Silencer as well.

[bill gates]

Hmm.. if nothing else will fit then I will probably get that Vantec cooler. Thanks for the suggestion. It looks a little small and cheap but it is better than nothing. I wonder why they chose to place the chipset so close to everything else? Maybe it is a little faster that way but it is sure going to make a hot zone in the computer since it cant be cooled very effectively. Well I get my motherboard from fedex tomorrow so I will install the video card and cpu heatsink and take some measurements to see how much space I am really going to have. I really want to squeeze a big heatsink in there but I will find out tomorrow.

[legion]

Originally posted by bill gates
I will be using the Thermalright XP-120 with a 120mm Panaflo 120mm 92cfm fan. Also I will be using the new MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum which was the highest rated 939 board at Anandtech. I am still trying to figure out what the best chipset cooler is. I want to have the best of the best when it comes to air cooling and I just dont know what the best one is right now. The thermalright NB-1c cooler looks good but so does the Swiftech mcx-159. And then there is te microcool northpole kit. Any suggestions for the chipset cooling, anyone know which is the best?

Using the stock heatsink on the Nvidia southbridge on the MSI K8N NEO2 I can runn 315htt with abosolute stability!
Check out www.overclockers.co.uk.
forums/motherboards/msi k8n owners thread!:D

[CrashOv3r1De]

Lets not flame....Both are good for their own purposes.

I do a lot of video encoding on my a64 (started recently) and I am not too happy. However I do a lot of gaming so this would be my reason to stay with the A64.

Also check out my folding score in my sig..Nice right? All done with my A64 running 24/7
read my post above:

Originally posted by CrashOv3r1De
I admit my stock 3400+ felt faster than my 2.4C @ 3.6ghz. Once I clocked it to 2.7ghz it destroyed my P4 3.2C @ 4.23ghz

[bill gates]

OMFG!!!!!!!! I just got my motherboard today and my f______ Thermalright XP-120 does not fit! Arggh!

Sorry I had to vent some anger. I talked with a tech from Thermalright way before I bought the motherboard and heatsink and he assured me that it would fit my new motherboard. I seriously doubt that I can send it back now, there isn't anything wrong with the heatsink it just doesn't fit my motherboard. I guess I can keep it for my Asus P4p800 motherboard and build a second computer.

Well now I don't know what to use for a heatsink for a 939 chip. This motherboard layout is kind of stupid. I cannot change the chipset heatsink at all since it is snug right underneath my agp card. I had to remove the fan switch on the vga silencer so it would clear a poorly placed capacitor, and the memory is really close to the cpu socket.

I can't believe I just spent like $80 on a heatsink/fan/grill that I can't even use. I almost want to get a different motherboard now.

[iboomalot]

take this with a gain of salt.

using this chart as a guide if you look at the 2.4c and how it scales. 60.5@2.4 -- 73.1@3.2 = 1.575/100mhz or 3.15/200mhz. The CPU will loose some of its scaling as the Mhz get higher as shown by the reduction between 2.4 and 3.2 mhz. But for talking purposes lets leave it at 3.15 fps in DOOM3 per 200mhz.

a stock 3500+ showed to be at 94.7 fps and thats even over a 3.4 EE which would need to be bumped to a 3.8EE to compare but back to the 2.4c chip. 94.7 - 73.1 = 21.6/ 3.15 = 6.85 * 200mhz = 1.370 ghz + 3.2 ghz = 4.570 ghz in doom 3 using the below chart.

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/doom3cpu_08020430812/3452.png

just some DOOM gaming food for thought.
--------------------------------edit-------------------------------------------

CPU wise run your system this is mine at STOCK speeds including 200 mhz ram. See how that compares.

Sandra CPU ALU --9,442 MIPS
Sandra CPU FPU --3,465 FLOPS
Sandra CPU SSE2 --4,517 FLOPS
Aquamark CPU --9,940
MetaBench ------3,783
Hot CPU test ----8,439
PCmark04 -------4,424
PiFast -------- 55.50 secs

[bill gates]

I can't run those benchmarks now because I have sold the processor. I can tell you that my pcmark 2004 score was: 5200.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm04=2439931

This was taken at 3.3ghz with 275fsb, 1gb of ddr 1:1, and 2x raptors in raid 0.



I am a little worried that your pcmark04 score was almost 800 points lower...I hope thaty is a typo or something. Can you please run a pcmark04 test with your system overclocked?

[iboomalot]

system at 2.6ghz GEIL ram at 220 mhz 2-2-2-5 I did the 5182 in my Sig.

having problems getting my score much higher but I will try at some point.

here is a nice overall benchmark for you to compare

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39164371,00.htm

[bill gates]

O.K. it is probably just a little lower on the A64 platform because of not having hyperthreading. I am sure that hyperthreading must be what accounts for the performance boost in Pcmark 04. No big deal, I am not buying the A64 for benchmarks just for games and if my games are noticeably faster then I will be very happy. I am still pissed off that my thermalright doesn't fit and that thermalright won't do anything to correct their mistake. Not very good customer service if you ask me.