Athlon XP or 64?

D

doanster

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Messages
139
What's better, an Athlon XP 3200+ barton or a Mobile Athlon 64 2800+ newcastle?

The barton would be paired with a MSI K7N2 mobo,
while the newcastle with a Gigabyte GA-K8N

I intend on doing some oc'ing, so that's a big deciding factor. The barton setup is of course cheaper. Should the non-dual-channel memory controller of the newcastle be a significant drawback compared to the dual-channel controller on the nForce2?
 
To answer the dual channel question, there should be little or no difference. This is because the max FSB, un-overclocked, on any socket A CPU is 200MHz/400FSB, which gives a CPU bandwidth of 3200MB/s. PC3200 RAM running at 200MHz has a maximum bandwidth of 3200MB/s. In dual channel mode, the theoretical RAM bandwidth jumps to 6400MB/s, but since the CPU limits the bandwidth to 3200MB/s, running dual mode does very little to boost performance.

Based on this I would go with the 3200 over the 2800. You can expect to only get about a 200 to 250mhz over clock on the barton if your lucky. As your FSB increases so will MB/s so the dual channel will help imporve performance in this case. However, The 3200 Barton core was the end of the line and there wont be much head room to overclock.
 
The Newcastle on the other hand, is a mobile, and is only a 2800+, so wouldn't that mean it has quite the potential to OC? Using the analogy that the 2500+ mobile barton is an amazing OC'er, wouldn't the 2800+ mobile be a decent performer as well? I dunno...
 
Oh crap, Thought it was a mobile XP 2800. I would go with with the A64 over the socket A for many reason. You have a better upgrade bath and can get a faster CPU in the future.
 
James24 said:
Oh crap, Thought it was a mobile XP 2800. I would go with with the A64 over the socket A for many reason. You have a better upgrade bath and can get a faster CPU in the future.
Click to expand...

Well... I'm not too sure about the upgrade path part... it's a now gradually extinct s754 CPU. So yeah, is the non-dual channel mem controller on the A64 a performance issue?

"for many a reason"... please explain! :D
 
By Next year there will be a ton of 754 cpu's up for sale as everyone finally upgrades so you should be able to upgrade for pretty cheap. You should be able to get a better overclock on the 2800 than the barton. It also has 1mb of on die L2 cache and that will have a big impact in many applications.
 
ok I want to chime in here on one issue, memory bandwidth and latency of athlon xp compared to s754 athlon 64

athlonXP in dual channel mode full DDR400 is about equal to a64 single channel. I have tested this with everest myself.

however, latency is always better on a64.

the BEST (overclocked) athlonXP system is only going to equal the power of a moderate s754 system.

the newcastle is going to OC farther then a 3200+ barton... I understand the non mobile 3200 barton does not OC well. the newcastle core also has 512k cache... not 1mb.
 
i would just wait till everybody jumps ship to am2 and get:

opteron 144 for about 100 bones

dfi nf4 board for about 75 bones

1 gig of bh5 for about 100 bones

7800gt for about 200 bones

psu that's adequate for dfi nf4 will run you about 75-100 bones


one hellava upgrade from socket a for about 500-600 bones


p.s. bones = u.s. dollars

lol

mal

edit: this is coming from a guy running a xp-m at 2.5ghz and an unlocked 6200 on water lol
 
I think I'm gonna stay away from the Opteron for the time being...
The only concern is that my RAM is not suitable for OC'ing (generic Samsung DDR400)
and the mobo for the Athlon64 isn't exactly the greatest...
 
doanster said:
I think I'm gonna stay away from the Opteron for the time being...
The only concern is that my RAM is not suitable for OC'ing (generic Samsung DDR400)
and the mobo for the Athlon64 isn't exactly the greatest...
Click to expand...

Why stay away from it if you're getting a new CPU anyway? You don't HAVE to overclock it, you can leave it at stock speeds and it'll be faster than the 2800+. Isn't the 2800+ S754 anyway? Why not just go to 939 all together so you still have an upgrade path?
 
I am confused as to why you want the 2800+

and spend the ten bux on a better mobo.
your ram won't hold you back you can use dividers.
and isnt the mobo you are looking at a socket 939?
thats what makes me so puzzled in all this

why do you want a newcastle?
 
stealthy123 said:
I am confused as to why you want the 2800+

and spend the ten bux on a better mobo.
your ram won't hold you back you can use dividers.
and isnt the mobo you are looking at a socket 939?
thats what makes me so puzzled in all this

why do you want a newcastle?
Click to expand...

Just mainly for budgetary reasons... if I go S939 I'm gonna have to follow with a few other upgrades as well, the main one being an PCIe vid card since rite now I have an AIW X800XT that I want to keep for a little longer.
And i'm interested to see how well the mobile 2800+ newcastle overclocks...
 
doanster said:
Should the non-dual-channel memory controller of the newcastle be a significant drawback compared to the dual-channel controller on the nForce2?
Click to expand...

The dual channel memory controllers onboard 939 A64s only provides a few percentage points more in performace over their similarily clocked single channel S754 A64 brethren.


Enjoy it.
 
doanster said:
Just mainly for budgetary reasons... if I go S939 I'm gonna have to follow with a few other upgrades as well, the main one being an PCIe vid card since rite now I have an AIW X800XT that I want to keep for a little longer.
And i'm interested to see how well the mobile 2800+ newcastle overclocks...
Click to expand...

There are Socket 939 boards with agp...and I'm pretty sure an opty 144 OC will smoke it anyway.
 
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