A64 vs P4-HT !

[banibratadutta]

Hi,

After pondering a lot over some down-right budget systems, I've thought that I need to give the mid-ranges a shot. So I was wondering about the comparative performance (and costs) of building a PC with Athlon64 vs. P4 with HT (2.8GHz). Could someone write the pros/cons of it. My typical usage profile is as follows:-

Linux
1) Development (C/C++ and some amount of Java)
2) Infrequently running Postgres / MySQL (for some DB related test, of essentially telecom/networking apps), but doing stress-testing of my apps (using some SQL engine).

Windows
1) MS-Word 2000, MS-Visio 2003, Rational Rose EE 2000 (at times all the 3 together).
2) IE5.5 / Mozilla (about 6-8 windows open in parallel)
3) MS-FlightSimulator 2002 (20-25fps is quite acceptable, at 800x600 or 1024x768 without much effects)
4) Converting some analog video/VHS to MPEG4/DVI etc.

I also will buy a basic to mid-level 3D acclerator card to go with it, and will have 512MB RAM, and UDMA 120GB HDD (ATA not SATA or SCSI). Given this profile, what would be the best processor for me ?

Futureproofing is not really a big criteria for me at this time.

thanks & regards,
bdutta

 

[ihiktacos]

I assume you already read several reviews about this, but in case you haven't seen this one, it might help you out:
http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2213

The advantage of going for the A64 setup is that if you want to run a 64 bit linux distro, you can, and this does perform better when it comes to compiling and DB related applications.

Regarding the advantage of HT, I am not too sure how much this still adds in favour of the P4.
The results in this review:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...oc.aspx?i=2249&p=6
show that a P4 3.0 is about the same lvl as the 3200+. Of course these are all just benchmarks and don't always paint a complete picture.

Basically it kind of depends what you are looking to spend anyways. The higher end P4s seem to be very fast, especially when it comes to multitasking etc. If you are looking at the lower end, the A64 probably is a better choice in terms of money/performance ratio.

 

[dguy6789]

it is close with alot of things. But the athlon 64s are in general, better then the p4s.

For games, compare an athlon 64 2800+ to a p4 3.2Ghz. In encoding, the 2800+ compares to a 2.8-3ghz p4.

HT can help, but does not help as much as people think.

I would get the Athlon 64, as they are cheaper and faster then the P4s at the same price. No P4 can come close to the FX55, and the highest end p4 will be more expensive then it.

The athlon 64 2800 is like 150 bucks. The P43.2 is much more. They are about the same performance level.

 

[slurmsmackenzie]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I would get the Athlon 64, as they are cheaper and faster then the P4s at the same price. q]



Is that right?

 

[gobucks]

yeah, I agree. an A64 2800 ($140) or 3000 ($160) are your best bets. Oh, and I saw some benchmarks of C++ compiling with a Linux 64-bit distro - the results were simply amazing. I think Anandtech has a review of this somewhere. Toss in the gaming performance, and it's a pretty obvious choice to go with AMD. Another good alternative is the socket 939 3000+ ($180 right now, but should go down as soon as supply increases). The socket 939 is nice because you can get a much faster CPU in a year or so. As for Hyperthreading, I won't go so far as to say it's useless, but it's far from essential. Benchmarks usually don't show a huge benefit, although users tend to describe a more responsive feel. However, Hyperthreading will likely dissappear when true dual core products emerge next year. On the AMD side, socket 939 will be compatible with dual core products, so if you get a 3000+ now, you will be able to throw one in later and get all those responsive benefits of hyperthreading, only much better.

 

[FullRoast]

It's a tough call, but if most the time you are doing real work, I might lean towards the P4. You mentioned that part of your use was "1) MS-Word 2000, MS-Visio 2003, Rational Rose EE 2000 (at times all the 3 together)". I currently have both a 3.0 GHz P4 system and an A64 system. Hyperthreading is great when you have two app's running at the same time. There is a noticeable difference between HT and not-HT. You can see for yourself simply by turn on and off HT for the same scenario, where you run concurrent apps. If you are not running concurrent app's, HT is not a big deal. For games, and most single app's, the A64 is great.

 

[FelixDeCat]

p4 owns joo

 

[whorush]

i say s939 A64, 90nm 3000+.

its a kick ass chip. better than the P4. and its 64 bit, blocks half of known viruses, and has kick ass memory latency.

get the msi neo mobo, but you may have to flash the bios.

fullroast, just a comment, when you say there is quite a difference b/n HT and no HT. do you mean just for the P4, or that you wish the A64 had HT? if so, consider the fact that intel only put HT on the P4 because its super crazy long pipeline was too often empty. its around 35 stages!! meanwhile the A64 is i think 12 stages! the K7 and K8 never had a problem with an empty pipeline, therefore they dont need to trick the OS into giving it the load of 2 CPUs. if HT was the panacea for all computing, then you'd think that intel would have implemented on its shorter pipeline chips like the ITANIC and the Pentium M. in short, teh A64 doesnt have HT because it doesnt need it. HT is a specific fix for a specific flaw in the P4's arch.

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

^ best value in a good system. get it

 

[whorush]

iwantanewcomputer, are you refering to my post?

 

[FullRoast]

Just to clarify, I meant that there is a big difference between running concurrent applications on a P4 with hyperthreading turned on and with a P4 and hyperthreading turned off.

I DO wish that the A64 had hyperthreading. The A64 would then multitask (with concurrent apps) better than it does now. As for pipeline depth comments - hyperthreading is quite similar to a logical dual core. If it was ONLY to overcome a deep pipeline, you'd have to wonder why AMD and Intel would bother to come out with dual core processors.

My point earlier was that I have had the chance to run both P4 and A64 side by side, switching between the two with a KVM. The P4 is better some some things, the A64 for others. I like both a lot. If you can't get both, you choose based on what you use your computer for. I'm glad I didn't have to choose!

 

[Lithan]

Originally posted by: FullRoast
I DO wish that the A64 had hyperthreading. The A64 would then multitask (with concurrent apps) better than it does now. As for pipeline depth comments - hyperthreading is quite similar to a logical dual core. If it was ONLY to overcome a deep pipeline, you'd have to wonder why AMD and Intel would bother to come out with dual core processors.

Huh? HT is nothing at all like dual cores. It's very little more than having two schedulers on a single core.

 

[whorush]

fullroast, HT tells the OS there are 2 cores, whether thats dual core or not doesnt matter.

the industry is not adopting dual core because they have seen the wonders of HT, but because as you increase clock speed, heat increases disproptionately and doesnt go down when you shrink processes. the first relation was always true but has gotten worse since most chips out there are close to their maximum possible frequency. after that, all the leakage and heat just makes it too unstable. also, when you shrink processes, like from 130 to 90 the chips heat used to go down but doesnt any more because everything inside of a chip is getting really really really really small, so small that they are bumping up against the laws of physics.

the P4 is closer to its breaking point than the A64, thats why they cancelled the 4Ghz chip and why theyve been stuck in the 3GHz for ever.

anyway what i mean is that if you bump a modern chip up 200MHz which lets say is a 10% improvment in preformance, that may very well mean a 25% increase in power and heat. so the chip world has said bumping frequencies is for the birds and settled on more parallelism instead. so they put 2 cores on one die, or in one package and then run at once. if you cut the freq to both of them, you can get the same preformance but with less power and heat. also, they have gone towards lower frequency, higher instructions per cycle chips like the A64 as opposed to lower IPC higher freq chips like the P4. this is also because as the clock gets so high, it starts to use a disproportionate amount of power. the P4's clock makes lots of heat and hogs lots of power.

so the trend is towards more PARALLELISM, wether thats inside of cores (higher IPCs) or in the form of more cores (mutiple cores on the same chip or on in the same package).

 

[FullRoast]

Huh? HT is nothing at all like dual cores. It's very little more than having two schedulers on a single core.

I guess it depends on how you look at it, but "nothing at all like dual cores" is a stretch. Here is a link to an Intel white paper that have a pretty good explanation.

"The Intel Xeon processor family implementation of Hyper-Threading technology enables each physical processor to appear as two logical processors to the operating system and software."

To the OS, it is very similar to having two physical processors in an SMP. The OS will handle dual core processors the same way.

 

[whorush]

dude, that was a serious nit pick.

 

[FullRoast]

Originally posted by: whorush
dude, that was a serious nit pick.

You got that right! I was just trying to help out banibratadutta.

I just put my A64 system together a few weeks ago, and I love it. I currently have a 90nm 3200+ in it, clock at 2.5 GHz, with a 6800 GT card. It is sweet. Definitely better for playing Doom 3 and Far Cry than the P4 system is. If banibratadutta was looking mostly for a gaming system, I would go with the A64.

At work, I really like the P4 with HT because I usually have multiple things running.

 

[Tom]

"HT is a specific fix for a specific flaw in the P4's arch."

HT isn't a "fix". It's part of the design. And there isn't a "flaw" in the P4's architecture, different doesn't equal "flaw".

Ideally a person should look at how they actually use their computer, then go with the system that best meets their needs. More realistically a person doesn't know exactly what they will do with their machine, and the various review sites, and forums do a poor job of giving people objective information to make a rational decision.

Take gaming as an example..everybody keeps recommending A64 for gaming, as though the advantage was clear cut and meaningful. The reality is much closer to either chip being great for gaming, but the impression is given that there is only one choice.

For most of today's applications, I think the only meaningful differences are cost and Hyperthreading. Cost is easy to measure, Hyperthreading is very hard to get the full story, partly because most conventional ways of "reviewing" cpus don't accurately reflect the way people use their computer.

For future applications, A64 has 64 bit possibilities, but it's really hard to say what difference this will make.

So to summarize there are 3 things I would consider..

1. cost- easy to measure
2. Hyperthreading - benefits go from negligible to pretty useful, depending on useage.
3. 64 bit - most likely useful in the future, but it's hard to say, really.

 

[Lithan]

Originally posted by: FullRoast

Huh? HT is nothing at all like dual cores. It's very little more than having two schedulers on a single core.

I guess it depends on how you look at it, but "nothing at all like dual cores" is a stretch. Here is a link to an Intel white paper that have a pretty good explanation.

"The Intel Xeon processor family implementation of Hyper-Threading technology enables each physical processor to appear as two logical processors to the operating system and software."

To the OS, it is very similar to having two physical processors in an SMP. The OS will handle dual core processors the same way.

Win2k pro has serious problems with HT for the very reason that it tries to treat it the same way it would two physical processors. So no, HT can not effectively operate like two physical processors.

 

[whorush]

tom, HT wasnt part of the design! it came out 2+ years after the chip was released! the P4 was realeased probably 2-3-4 years after they made the "design." it was "designed" into it 4 to 6 years later to "fix" the problem of the P4s empty pipelines which killed its IPCs.

for the record, AMD wins in gaming and productivity and costs less... even with sysmark amd holds its own, read the links below and keep it in mind when looking at sysmark or any of the bapco benchmarks. benchmarks are often suspect, no wonder why mike magee at theinquirer.net coined the term benchmarketing.

http://www.vanshardware.com/ar...0814_Intel_SysMark.htm
http://www.vanshardware.com/ar...lievable_Benchmark.htm

and check the links from these articles...

 

[gobucks]

If there isn't a "flaw" in the architecture, then why are they abandoning it? They just cancelled the P4 4.0GHz, for now the best they can do is release a line of slower 2MB L2 cache P4s while they try frantically to get the Pentium M's Floating Point performance up to snuff, and design a dual core version of it for use in the desktop. Doubling the cache on the P4 is a last resort, since it adds a lot of extra cost and reduces capacity, so clearly they are only doing this because the netburst architecture is falling apart.

As for HT, yes, it helps for having multiple apps open, but it's not like it's hard for the A64 to handle having multiple things open at the same time. Christ, I'm running on a 700MHz athlon slot a, and I can still have lots of stuff open without problems. In this situation, I think the Athlon 64 would fit the bill nicely, especially the socket 939 version with dual channel memory, like a 3000-3500, and the 64-bit linux ability would be a big boost (C++ compiling in half the time, anyone?). All tests I've seen in linux have been encouraging for 64-bits, and windows has even seen some promising results with its latest 64-bit windows xp beta.

 

[whorush]

amen gobucks. can you believe that in 2004 we're extolling the joys of multitasking, that was so 1995. its really an nonissue.

HT helps the P4 with multliple apps but wouldnt help the A64 since the pipeline is already full, it would probably slow it down.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: slurmsmackenzie

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I would get the Athlon 64, as they are cheaper and faster then the P4s at the same price. q]



Is that right?

Oh woops typo. But you know what I meant. If you look at an Athlon 64, and at a Pentium 4 of the same price, the Athlon 64 will be faster. Cheaper Athlon 64s are usually better then the more expensive P4s as well.

A P4 3.2Ghz is $222 bucks, while the Athlon 64 2800+(these are about the same speed) is 141. An Athlon 64 3700+ is $461, while the slower P4 3.4Ghz EE is $1,019. AMD has even faster chips then the 3700+, such as the FX55 or the 4000+.

 

[carlosd]

Originally posted by: gobucks
If there isn't a "flaw" in the architecture, then why are they abandoning it? They just cancelled the P4 4.0GHz, for now the best they can do is release a line of slower 2MB L2 cache P4s while they try frantically to get the Pentium M's Floating Point performance up to snuff, and design a dual core version of it for use in the desktop. Doubling the cache on the P4 is a last resort, since it adds a lot of extra cost and reduces capacity, so clearly they are only doing this because the netburst architecture is falling apart.

As for HT, yes, it helps for having multiple apps open, but it's not like it's hard for the A64 to handle having multiple things open at the same time. Christ, I'm running on a 700MHz athlon slot a, and I can still have lots of stuff open without problems. In this situation, I think the Athlon 64 would fit the bill nicely, especially the socket 939 version with dual channel memory, like a 3000-3500, and the 64-bit linux ability would be a big boost (C++ compiling in half the time, anyone?). All tests I've seen in linux have been encouraging for 64-bits, and windows has even seen some promising results with its latest 64-bit windows xp beta.

I run multiple heavy apps with my Athlon 64 and it's really good, just as good as P4HT that I use at job. findind my A64 much more responsive under heavy load. So have not seen the advantages of HT without heavily optimized apps, it would be just the same runnig multiple tasks.

 

[Cerb]

For compiling, the Athlon64 is superior no matter how you cut it. If Opteron performance is any key, it would be better for MySQL as well.

On the Windows side, a decent 3D card is enough for what you want--a 9600 Pro aught to do very well.

For the office & dev apps, RAM should be more of an issue than the CPU. The Athlon64 will be more responsive in general, but the HT might be nice if you stick under load and still want to do a lot. For encoding, both are neck and neck (assuming socket 939).

However, you should get more RAM. 512MB is cutting it too close if you might be running Word, Visio, some dev software, and multiple browser windows. With 1GB, you aught to be free to load your taskbar up.

Your needs are not that great, so I'd have to say A64, go to 1GB RAM. One thing to note as well is that the A64 will give more performance per watt, as well.

 

[banibratadutta]

Hi All:

This is a wonderful forum. I think I have pretty much made up my mind (based on your feedback). I think I would go for an Athlon-64 2800+/3000+ and atleast 512MB RAM (or 1GB if I can afford it -- but I doubt that). As far a decent 3D-card, unfortunately, most of those decent (mid-range) cards cost more than the cost of the whole PC, here in India, so I guess I'd have to pass it for now!! ).

I do use a P4-HT(2.8) at work, and also a Athlon(32bit) 2200+, but apart from compilation, my opinion is that P4-HT was definitely more responsive (both have same amount of RAM, not sure about bus-speeds), and neither is OC'd. In anycase, given the price of P4 vs. A64, A64 does seem to be a better bet.

tnx again,
best regards,
banibratadutta