Where is the software?

AMD sent out evaluation systems with a beta copy of Windows XP 64-bit Edition, and if you remember back several months the alleged point of delaying the Athlon 64's launch was to coincide with the release of Windows XP 64-bit Edition. From what we're hearing, although a beta of the OS will be available very soon, the final release will not be until Q1 2004.

We managed to do some 32-bit performance testing on the 64-bit Edition of Windows XP, however out of our entire benchmark suite - only one test would complete and that test was actually slower under Win64. The latest build of the beta is supposed to have better performance, but for now don't expect 64-bit Windows to be a reality. Without application support, the 64-bit "experience" is quite anticlimactic. We browsed the web in 64-bit Internet Explorer for a while before rebooting the system and getting some work done in 32-bit Windows.

The story is much different under Linux, where we managed to run tests under Red Hat Enterprise 2.9.5WS (Taroon), also a beta release. We will talk more about our results under Linux later in the article.

Motherboard Support Powered by NVIDIA & VIA Intel's Preemptive Strike - Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
Comments Locked

122 Comments

View All Comments

  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    Anand runs the Content Creation benchmark without the bugfix patch?!?! WTF? Like that's fair... Without the patch, it doesn't use SSE properly with the Athlons...

    And the FX 51 benches are completely bogus, because he used an nForce3-based motherboard.

    They've got issues, and the Via boards outperform
    them significantly. Hello? Anand?

    http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2003q3/athlon64...

    "Notice here the contrast between the Athlon 64 FX with the K8T800 and with the nForce3 Pro. With the K8T800, the Athlon 64 FX is arguably the fastest system overall in the viewperf suite. The nForce3 Pro, however, seems to limit performance quite a bit."
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    #9 Which planet are you on?
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    Great news for the Linux users:-) I'm seeing a lot of Windows users switching to Linux and using transcode or cinelerra:-)
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    Good thing you are not biased at atll, #4
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    Eat it #6 amd fan boy
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    yes, you're right #4, they're biased. just like all the other tech sites praising the new amd chip. they're obviously all wrong.... go away
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    Still can't decide. Leaning Intel... I've had better experience with Intel.. but next year When XP64 shipes......
    Guess I will stick with my trusty 386..
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    BIASED BIASED BIASED BIASED BIASED

    The P4EE whoops new AMDs chip and you say is "The Pentium 4 EE manages to regain some lost ground for Intel, but not enough". YOU ARE CRAZY!!!!!! The Prescott will DEMOLISH AMD once and for all. Btw, get some more benchmarks. Q3 and UT2003 are OLD GAMES using DX8. Run Battlefield and other memory/cpu entensive games.

    AMD fanboys can't cry about their chip is slower but cheaper either.

    Worst biased site ever. Just because they kissed your butt and showed you the cpu's a year in advance you shove your nose up AMDs socket.

    BIASED BIASED BIASED BIASED BIASED
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    What people tend to forget is that 3200+ is the INITIAL speed from the first batch of CPU's. As with the XP the speed will increase rather rapidly as well as die-quality and tweaks/performance fixes. Athlon XP debuted at what, 1500+ (?) and now ends at 3200+. The A64 going to 90nm will yield some neat increases in available speeds (4800+ anyone?) ;)
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link

    wtf no 640x480 game benchmarks?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now