Athlon 64 or Athlon Barton?

[sheltem]

I'm building a computer for my friend and originally what I wanted was to build an Athlon 64 3000+ system. But with the price drops on the athlon xp's, is paying more for the Athlon 64 worth it?

 

[Ronstang]

I would say no, but my approach to building PCs is bang for the buck and as budget as possible since I get more satisfaction out of something really nice for a steal as opposed to the latest and greatest for a huge hit to the wallet......so more opinions are needed.

 

[Soulkeeper]

i don't think it would be worth it
unless the guy don't care how much money he spends or if he really wants a 64-bit compatible cpu
basically getting an athlon xp 2500+ 2800+ or even 3200+ would be the cheaper way to go when comparing to the athlon64

besides amd is gonna be implementing many new things on the athlon64 platform such as a new socket, ddr2, and pci express
it just ain't worth dishing out the money for one unless you don't mind seeing it's price drop 30% in a few months and it being outperformed by whatever is released by maybe 30%

the price on the athlon xp's is already low

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Yeah it is worth it. The performance difference is huge. Even in teh bang per buck category they are close considering that they outperform the new P4's.

 

[edmundoab]

looking at the future its good to venture into a new processor with a new architecture.

However, alot is there to learn about the K8 compared to the K7 not to mention the maturity of the chipset for K8

of course, moneywise, it depends on what the budget goes.

 

[nageov3t]

for now, I'd recomend the Barton.

the 64 chips look really promising, but I don't think that they provide enough "bang" to be worth the price for the average user.

 

[VIAN]

3000 Barton is very appealing and total system cost would be lowered with this one.

3000 A64 does perform a lot better though but it'll cost you about 250 dollars more including extra cost for motherboard too.

 

[Flyermax2k3]

I'll pitch in my two cents here:
I'm running a Barton 2800+ @ 3000+ which I picked up for (relatively) cheap a couple months ago, and I have yet to run across a program or programs that will bring this system to its knees. I do video encoding and dvd authoring all the time, as well as some programming and DC projects; basically your average all-around system nowadays. If I could have gotten an Athlon 64 system setup for the same price as what I put my Barton together for, I probably would have done it, just because the A64 is definitely faster than any Barton (without massive overclocking anyway) and for the 64-bit capability. I'll probably go A64/A64-compatible sometime within the next year or so, but for now this Barton is doing just fine

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You'd have to have rocks in your head to pay a $158 for a Barton when a A64 3000+ is only $52 more. The cost of a good board isn't much of a difference between the two skt's and the A64 will school the Barton in gaming while providing equal to superior performance across a broad range of other applications. Either get a 2500+ Barton and overclock dat badboy massively for a great value or get the A64. I went from a Barton@2.35ghz for daily use, 2.43ghz for benching, to a A64 3000+@2.2ghz 440DDR and it has made a big improvement for gaming while not causing my SETI times to suffer and adding SSE2 support as well.

 

[Tiorapatea]

I say Barton. For what you pay today for the 2500+ and decent Abit NF7-S mobo ($175), you can be very satisfied, keep money in the bank for the big move over to 64-bits and wait for Socket 939, new Athlon64 steppings, 90 nm die shrink for a cheaper (and more overclockable?) CPU, faster, more stable chipsets, PCI-Express - need I go on?

 

[jjjjayd13]

Originally posted by: Tiorapatea
I say Barton. For what you pay today for the 2500+ and decent Abit NF7-S mobo ($175), you can be very satisfied, keep money in the bank for the big move over to 64-bits and wait for Socket 939, new Athlon64 steppings, 90 nm die shrink for a cheaper (and more overclockable?) CPU, faster, more stable chipsets, PCI-Express - need I go on?

Just bought the above system. I am 2200+ and climbing w/2500+.

Right now, the 2500+ is the way to go, w/Abit NF7-S v2.0

 

[VIAN]

I say Barton. For what you pay today for the 2500+ and decent Abit NF7-S mobo ($175), you can be very satisfied, keep money in the bank for the big move over to 64-bits and wait for Socket 939, new Athlon64 steppings, 90 nm die shrink for a cheaper (and more overclockable?) CPU, faster, more stable chipsets, PCI-Express - need I go on?

BTX Form Factor too, if every it comes out.

 

[THEREALJMAN]

I will throw my vote in for the A64. It really wont cost much more and is a HUGE performance gain. You can not be worried about what is comming out next month or the month after because you will always be disapointed.
Hands down the A64 3000+ is a better chip than the Barton 2500+ (which I still think is a kick butt cpu!).

 

[Sazar]

am running a 3400+ here and the core is certainly worth it... the raw speed is amazing... much faster than my old 3.0c rig...

if cost is an issue.. go for a barton... if its not a cost issue get an a64 but if you can wait get a socket 939...

 

[Vette73]

I sold my AthlonXP system and got a P4 as the Athlon64 was to much, BUT after I got the P4 I had buyers regreat and the P4 was not that much faster then a AthlonXP. So I sold my P4 and bought a Athlon64 3000+ retail and a Albatron K8X800 board that comes with Hardware sound, TRUE sata, giga ethernet, etc.... and only goes for $117 shipped at newegg.com

After that I LOVE my athlon64. Feals faster then a p4 and well worth the extra $$$ over a AthlonXP in my book.

 

[batmanuel]

If you are buying right now, get a 2500+ (or a 2500+ mobile, which I've been reading is an excellent overlocker), a good NF2 board and some good RAM and enjoy the best bang you can get for your buck right now. While you will always be waiting on new technology, it just seems like there is too much new stuff coming out in the near future (especially PCI-Express and Socket 939) to invest a lot of money on the A64 platform right now. 6 months from now might be a good time to invest in the new platform, but not right now.

There is never a PERFECT time to buy, but some are better than others. I laid my cash out on a NF2 board around a year ago, and it has aged very gracefully in the past year, so I haven't been struck with the usual buyer's remorse. I'm waiting for the A64 market to reach a similar point before I upgrade again, once all the new technologies get fully implemented and supported in software.

 

[SneakyStuff]

BTX form factor my foot.

 

[Tiorapatea]

Well, fair enough, if money is not too big a factor, obviously the A64 is a better chip than Barton. The OP did not give us any marginal cost benefit analysis on his friend's behalf so we obviously can't judge that.

My point is there is a good case for going with a cheap and proven platform at this time given that there are so many upcoming changes referred to above. This is always the case but this year does look like more of a watershed than we have seen for some time.

batmanuel, I just (pre-)ordered an AthlonXP-M 2500+.

I've been doing a lot of research these past few weeks getting ready for my first build and just when I was ready to go for a locked 2500+, hoping for 11x200, I stumbled across the frenzy over at amdmb.com about the XP-M.

XP-M frenzy

I like the theory and just hope it pans out for me. The theory is the XP-Ms are hand-picked by AMD so they can sell chips that run at a low stock voltage to the desktop replacement market where heat is obviously an issue. What's more, these chips are apparently unlocked - who would overclock a chip in a laptop, right? Apparently 2.7 GHz is attainable with 2.03V and water-cooling!

I won't be going that far but I hope to have a nice overclock and then retire the chip to an HTPC and undervolt it.

If more people substantiate this, those chips are going to be hard to find - that's why I just dropped everything and ordered.

 

[batmanuel]

I was a bit skeptical at first on the XP-M's, but the more I read the better they look. What is really unusual about them is how cheap they are. I guess with the Pentium-M being the mobile chip to beat, they had tp price aggressively. There still is a bit of a premium on the compared to the 2500+ desktop chip, but it could be very much worth it if it OCs as high as they say.

I think a lot of early adopters are going to be regretting waiting for PCI-Express. I don't see it making such a big difference on the graphics front (heck, AGP 8X is nowhere near maxed out right now), but if you are looking to do stuff like RAID a pair of 74GB Raptors, you will probably be kinda bottlenecked by the old PCI bus when you are transferring a lot of data.

 

[CubicZirconia]

Sorry to bring this back, but does anyone have a link with benchmarks or something that directly compares the barton's and the a64s?

 

[Shimmishim]

Bang for the buck ... go barton.

best performance and bragging rights... go A64

 

[cowdog]

Originally posted by: CubicZirconia
Sorry to bring this back, but does anyone have a link with benchmarks or something that directly compares the barton's and the a64s?

Check this review. They have the Athlon XP 3000+ and 3200+ in there with all the heavy hitters.