32 MAXIMUM PC JUNE 2004
EEXPERIMENTS WITHXPERIMENTS WITH
Which is Faster—Intel’sP4EE or AMD’s FX-53?
The test: When people ask us questions
about processors, they don’t want to
know which CPU is cheaper or which
gives the best return on investment. No.
The only question that matters is which
CPU is faster: Intel’s Pentium 4 Extreme
Edition or AMD’s
Athlon 64 FX-53?
To find out, we ran
the FX-53 against
the 3.4EE on four
leading chipsets:
Intel’s 875P, VIA’s
PT880, VIA’s K8T800, and nVidia’s nForce- We used the same basic components
and drivers for each platform, although we
did have to use registered memory for the
FX because of its RAM requirements.
The results: Our Lab tests produced
mixed results. Instead of a nice tight
grouping of victories in a single column
that would clearly indicate which CPUis faster, the wins were all over the map. The P4EE won the
largest number of tests, but the FX-53 also notched its share of
victories.
With these kinds of results, the only thing that’s clear is that
we cannot pronounce a winner. Subjectively speaking, though,
the Athlon 64 FX “feels” faster in games that don’t have built-in
benchmarks, while the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition “feels” faster
in most applications that don’t stress floating-point math. The
P4EE is also faster in newer apps, while the Athlon 64 FX is
faster in older apps.CPU PERFORMANCE 2.4GHZ FX-53 2.4GHZ FX-53 3.4GH P4EEE 3.4GHZ P4EE
CHIPSET VIA K8T800 NFORCE3 150 INTEL I875P VIA PT
SYSmark2004 Overall 193 183 196 193
Content Creation Overall 222 213 229 225
Office Productivity Overall 167 158 167 165
Photoshop 7.0.1 (sec) 266 266 254 270
Premiere Pro (sec) 678 681 515 527
Mathematica (sec) 504 508.4 607.7 609.
MusicMatch 8.1 (sec)^258259225225
Comanche 8x6 (fps) 73.89 73.1 74.22 73.
AquaMark CPU 9,898 10,393 10,391 9,
3DMark2001 SE 20,349 20,419 19,898 19,
3DMark 2003 CPU 779 807 820 793
Jedi Academy 12x10 (fps) 47.5 41.3 46.2 46.
Unreal Tournament Flyby (fps) 321.9 315.4 293.5 291.
Quake III “Four” (fps) 470 444 460 498
SiSoft Sandra 2004 RAM Composite (MB/s) 5,575 5,809 4,555 4,
Best scores are bolded.How much faster is the Athlon 64 FX
than the Athlon 64 3400+?
The test: We already know the Athlon 64 FX-53 is fast, but exactly
how much of a performance boost does its dual-channel RAM give
you over a plain-Jane Athlon 64? To find out, we took an Athlon 64
3400+ (the fastest available) and compared it with an Athlon 64 FX-- And because we were curious, we also compared it with an
Athlon 64 FX-51.
If you haven’t been following current CPU events, you can’t use
an Athlon 64 in a motherboard designed for the Athlon 64 FX and
vice versa. Because core-logic chipsets impact performance, we
used the same chipset in both Socket 754 (for the Athlon 64) and
Socket 940 (for the Athlon 64 FX) in order to isolate the variable of
CPU performance. An nForce3 150 powered both our Asus SK8N
FX board and our Soyo CK8 A64 motherboard. Both rigs used
Western Digital WD2500JB hard drives, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro cards,
and the same amount of Corsair Micro DDR400 memory (the FX
requires registered RAM).The results: We’ve always known that the Athlon 64 3400+ is
a peppy CPU but we were still surprised by just how fast this
proc performed. The Athlon 64 FX-53 still holds the title as the
fastest AMD CPU, but its 7-to-10 percent performance advantage
is less likely the result of its dual-channel
memory controller than its 200MHz clock
speed advantage. The synthetic memory
benchmarks show the FX-51 still outrunning
the Athlon 64, but our real-world tests
indicate this performance differential doesn’t
mean squat. Perhaps down the road we’ll
see more impressive real-life results from
the Athlon FX line’s incredible memory
performance capabilities. For now, what
benchmarks the FX-53 wins, it does so by a
slim 2-to-3 percent margin.
What’s holding back the FX? The primary
suspect is the slower registered RAM that
the Athlon 64 FX requires (remember, the
A64FX is based on the server-orientated
Opteron). AMD is expected to finally nix
the requirement for registered RAM when
it moves both the A64 and A64 FX to the
new Socket 939 later this year.CPU PERFORMANCE 2.2GHz 3400+ 2.4GHz FX-53 2.2GHz FX-
Quake III “Normal” Four (fps) 450 484 450
SiSoft Sandra RAM Composite 3,041 5,685 5,
Premiere Pro (sec)^751684743
3DMark 2001 SE 19,990 20,188 19,
AquaMark 3 CPU 9,638 10,355 9,
3DMark 2003 CPU 757 836 780
UT2003 Fly By 6x4 (fps) 309.3 329.9 312.
SYSmark 2004 Overall^173184174
AquaMark CPU 9,898 10,393 10,
3DMark2001 SE 20,349 20,419 19,
3DMark 2003 CPU 779 807 820
Best scores are bolded.