Pentium 4 3.46 Extreme Edition and 925XE: 1066MHz FSB Support is Here
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 31, 2004 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Cheap - High End: Athlon 64 3800+ vs. Pentium 4 560
This entire review has been focused on comparing processors that retail either close to or over $1000 since they are flagship chips, but what about the next price class down? There's a very interesting situation here with the most expensive non-EE Pentium 4 being significantly cheaper than the highest end non-FX Athlon 64 processors.
Using our RealTime Pricing Engine we pitted the bargain high end Pentium 4 560, going for $440, against the more expensive Athlon 64 3800+ which is still selling for just over $600. So which CPU is the better choice if you want performance almost as good as the high end chips, but at a much more reasonable price? Let's find out.
First we've got the business/general use application tests; with AMD taking five of the benchmarks and Intel taking three, the score card is pretty close between the two, however AMD does win by higher margins so the nod goes to AMD here. However, once you take into account the price difference between the two CPUs, AMD's margin of victory is cut into. Despite the price argument, we'll still give the crown here to AMD.
| Business/General Use | |||
Intel
Pentium 4 560
|
AMD
Athlon 64 3800+
|
Winner
|
|
| Business Winstone 2004 | 21.4
|
23.6
|
AMD
(10.2%)
|
| SYSMark 2004 - Communication | 144
|
139
|
Intel
(3.6%)
|
| SYSMark 2004 - Document Creation | 201
|
194
|
Intel
(3.6%)
|
| SYSMark 2004 - Data Analysis | 184
|
145
|
Intel
(27%)
|
| Microsoft Office XP with SP-2 | 522
|
520
|
Tie
|
| Mozilla 1.4 | 459
|
316
|
AMD
(31.2%)
|
| ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0 | 547
|
490
|
AMD
(10.4%)
|
| Ahead Software Nero Express 6.0.0.3 | 540
|
491
|
AMD
(9%)
|
| WinZip Computing WinZip 8.1 | 412
|
409
|
Tie
|
| WinRAR | 479
|
617
|
AMD
(28.8%)
|
| Winner | AMD
|
||
Under our Multitasking Content Creation tests Intel comes away with three wins, and AMD with two. One of AMD's victories is in a test with a fairly high margin of error reducing the real world performance advantage; factor in the lower CPU cost and Intel wins this one.
| Multitasking Content Creation | |||
Intel
Pentium 4 560
|
AMD
Athlon 64 3800+
|
Winner
|
|
| Content Creation Winstone 2004 | 32.7
|
35.3
|
AMD
(8%)
|
| SYSMark 2004 - 3D Creation | 231
|
205
|
Intel
(12.7%)
|
| SYSMark 2004 - 2D Creation | 288
|
265
|
Intel
(8.7%)
|
| SYSMark 2004 - Web Publication | 206
|
188
|
Intel
(9.6%)
|
| Multitasking: Mozilla and Windows Media Encoder | 676
|
590
|
AMD
(12.7%)
|
| Winner | Intel
|
||
AMD wins two, Intel wins one, factor in variance between tests and AMD still comes out ahead by a reasonable margin. AMD wins the performance crown here, but its debatable whether or not the performance advantage is worth the price.
| Video Creation/Photo Editing | ||||
Intel
Pentium 4 560
|
AMD
Athlon 64 3800+
|
Winner
|
||
| Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1 | 342
|
315
|
AMD
(7.9%)
|
|
| Adobe Premiere 6.5 | 461
|
371
|
AMD
(19.5%)
|
|
| Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator 1.5 | 287
|
310
|
Intel
(7.4%)
|
|
| Winner | AMD
|
|||
Intel wins the A/V encoding tests hands down, barely losing one of the tests.
| Audio/Video Encoding | ||||
Intel
Pentium 4 560
|
AMD
Athlon 64 3800+
|
Winner
|
||
| MusicMatch Jukebox 7.10 | 484
|
458
|
AMD
(5.4%)
|
|
| DivX Encoding | 55.3
|
47.9
|
Intel
(15.4%)
|
|
| XV Encoding | 33.9
|
32.6
|
Intel
(4%)
|
|
| Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9.0 | 2.57
|
2.21
|
Intel
(16.3%)
|
|
| Winner | Intel
|
|||
There's no argument here, the 3800+ is clearly the faster gaming processor.
| Gaming | |||
Intel
Pentium 4 560
|
AMD
Athlon 64 3800+
|
Winner
|
|
| Doom 3 | 84.6
|
97.3
|
AMD
(15%)
|
| Sims 2 | 47.3
|
55.4
|
AMD
(17.1%)
|
| CS: Source | 142.8
|
171.6
|
AMD
(20.2%)
|
| Halo | 87.5
|
95
|
AMD
(8.6%)
|
| Far Cry | 130.3
|
151.4
|
AMD
(16.2%)
|
| Star Wars Battlefront | 140
|
144
|
AMD
(2.9%)
|
| Battlefield Vietnam | 236
|
240
|
AMD
(1.7%)
|
| UT2004 | 59.3
|
67.6
|
AMD
(14%)
|
| Wolf: ET | 97.2
|
107.1
|
AMD
(10%)
|
| Warcraft III | 60
|
62
|
AMD
(3.3%)
|
| Winner | AMD
|
||
AMD wins two benchmarks by less than 5%, while Intel wins one benchmark by less than 7%. We'll call this one a toss up between the two in performance, but factor in price and Intel wins.
| 3D Rendering | |||
Intel
Pentium 4 560
|
AMD
Athlon 64 3800+
|
Winner
|
|
| Discreet 3ds max 5.1 (DirectX) | 267
|
254
|
AMD
(4.9%)
|
| Discreet 3ds max 5.1 (OpenGL) | 327
|
312
|
AMD
(4.6%)
|
| SPECapc 3dsmax 6 | 1.64
|
1.54
|
Intel
(6.5%)
|
| Winner | Tie
|
||
For 3D Professional applications AMD takes the clear lead, not to mention a significant advantage in compiler performance as well. The added cost of the Athlon 64 is well worth it in some of the tests, but is more questionable in others.
| Professional Apps | |||
Intel
Pentium 4 560
|
AMD
Athlon 64 3800+
|
Winner
|
|
| SPECviewperf 8 - 3dsmax-03 | 17.04
|
16.75
|
Intel
(1.7%)
|
| SPECviewperf 8 - catia-01 | 13.87
|
14.03
|
AMD
(1.2%)
|
| SPECviewperf 8 - light-07 | 14.3
|
14.3
|
Tie
|
| SPECviewperf 8 - maya-01 | 13.12
|
18.58
|
AMD
(41.6%)
|
| SPECviewperf 8 - proe-03 | 16.7
|
17.19
|
AMD
(2.9%)
|
| SPECviewperf 8 - sw-01 | 13.09
|
13.72
|
AMD
(4.8%)
|
| SPECviewperf 8 - ugs-04 | 15.31
|
16
|
AMD
(4.5%)
|
| Visual Studio 6 | 16.8
|
13.1
|
AMD
(22.0%)
|
| Winner | AMD
|
||
So in the end, who takes the crown? AMD or Intel? The 3800+ took four category wins, while the Pentium 4 560 only took two, however with the exception of the gaming and professional apps category, AMD's victories were not overwhelming - especially once you take into account the fact that the 3800+ is priced much higher than the Pentium 4 560. Now that you can purchase at least a couple of 915 based motherboards for less than $130 the total cost of ownership for the Intel platform doesn't eat into the CPU price advantage. For the most part we'd say the 3800+ is faster than the Pentium 4 560 but not always worth the added cost. It's unusual but in many cases, the Pentium 4 560 is actually the bargain high-end chip of the two.
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GhandiInstinct - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
Come on Dell, cheaper, faster..give in to the grown up taste!!!I still can't fathom Dell being the top computer seller worldwide, are soccer moms buying at record highs?
Tides - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
i'd say ddr2 does suck when intel gets less performance with it vs an amd 939 with ddr1. what a waste of cash to have the intel branding.jimmy43 - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
Most people dont care whats in their computer. Intel is a brand name people trust, but if they can get a computer for less money which can do all they need, then they will. And guess what? Theyl be blown away, and theyl realize AMD slays Intel and theyl laugh at their friends who got an Intel. The reason Intel is able to hold on so well to the market is because of conservative companies like DELL and other such multi-billion dollar partnerships. I say once DELL gives in, its over for Intel. But seriosly they really need to pick it up...Zebo - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
Those gaming benchmarks are embarresing.A "budget" athlon 64 3400 with the "old" socket 754 single channel mem controller is putting a whoppin' on Intels top chip.Zebo - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
SLIMYou're forgetting DDR2 price which this needs in your so called Intel is "cheaper" comparison. If you want the same price setup you can get a FX-55 and really bring the wood.
AnonymouseUser - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
"why didn't anyone try to overclock this thing and see how far it'll go?"They didn't want to melt the motherboard?
knitecrow - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
why didn't anyone try to overclock this thing and see how far it'll go?Determinant - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
There is a graph missing in the "Business/General Use Performance" page.The graph for "Ahead Software Nero Express 6.0.0.3" is replaced by a duplicate of the preceding graph.
I was surprised to see the big difference when burning CDs/DVDs with different CPUs until I realized that it was the wrong graph.
I'm really interested to see how much of an impact faster CPUs make for burning CDs/DVDs because I didn't think that there would be a difference outside of the benchmark variance but since this was benchmarked it must have been noticable.
Thanks
MMORPGOD - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
None of you are aware of the situation Intel has over the world computing market. Yes evryone here on Anand forum is hardcore or enthusiast of computer tech and gaming for PC. But one thing none of you have a grasp on is that Intel has millions of people who do not define themselfs as ever being knowledgable to computing performance or benchmarks. Basicly all of intel is going to be on top no matter what, unless something big happens where the community who purchases these computer systems from the retail stores either sees whats going on beforehand or just wises up and reads about there current technology. Its something thats proven and works, Intel is leading the world in publications of its product more then AMD, thus they have a hand on being on the top. I am a diehard AMD fan, and there isnt to many of us out there who have been since AMD came out, but I can tell you, with all this media coverage on Intel over the past years, its engraved into evry consumers head that the next PC they get they will most likely purchase retail INtel equiped PC. AMD needs to market a little more because average people dont give a damn about benchmarks. Just my opinion about evryone who I see post above who says man Intel is toast or Intel is gone, those are benchmark comments and dont disolve the real world consumers thoughts on a PC with Intel name. How many people go into a Circuit City or Best Buy and see more AMD products then Intel? Intel leads advertisements and in store showcasing, so until someone actually gives the word to the public that AMD is better, Intel will always lead but not in performace. Cant wait for my FX-55Pythias - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
I really hope intel can get it back together, or we're gonna be looking at sky high processor pricing again. We need healthy competition.