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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AlexWade - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
Now if only I can afford and find one ...MMORPGOD - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
IntelUser2000 - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
DDR2 is not a stupid move, its the speed they are at that's stupid. Remember DDR? They first ones ran at 200MHz, which were 50% faster than PC133 and still way faster than the enthusiast 166MHz SDRAMs. DDR's latency were higher, but since their clock is much higher, it wasn't a big problem as DDR2 vs DDR. However, PC1600 DDR still was not a big improvement over PC133, it was when PC2100 came that DDR started to shine.Another thing:
Quote:"With the original 925X chipset we were a bit unhappy to see that the Pentium 4's 800MHz FSB was paired with DDR2-533, creating one of those frustrating asynchronous situations."
I think 800MHz bus with DDR2-533 is actually VERY synchronous. First look it doesn't look like it. However since DDR2s latency is higher, it doesn't act like DDR533, it acts like DDR400. There was a Tomshardware review that was trying to predict the performance of 1066MHz bus.
First config was: 800MHz bus, DDR2-533
Second: 1066MHz bus, DDR2-533
Third: 1066MHz bus, DDR2-667
Guess which one had the biggest performance benefit? The third one, contrary to most people's belief. I think that tells that because of the DDR2's latency, you need DDR2-667 to perfectly match 1066MHz bus. Since Intel chose to stick with DDR2-533, they have created an asynchronous situation, making the performance not so much better. They should have went DDR2-667 with 1066MHz bus.
SLIM - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
One thing I didn't catch from anand's review is that the 3.46ee is rated at 110.7 watts according to [H]; just another reason to go AMD. Makes you wonder what the 3.73ee (which is supposed to launch this quarter) will have for a heatsink...Prometia for everyone:)
Tides - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
I remember reading a week or two ago about "AMD is going to have a tough time keeping up," from the lips of an Intel guy.Was this latest outing with the new P4EE's the proof? Perhaps I lack the foresight to understand what will happen in 6 months time, but in who's world is AMD going to have a hard time keeping up with? Cyrix's?
Tides - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
"ddr2 is a stupid move."Tides - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
not to mention, hi, ddr2 for is a stupid move. high latency, crap bandwidth, not just twice the price since you wouldn't have had to upgrade your ram otherwise if you already had solid ddr1.it reminds me of rambus. and beta max. and sony's discman. what else? ddr2 should have never come out imo. ddr3 is where it's at, hopefully amd will go straight to ddr3 and save it's customers and themselves the hastle of having to buy new ram, new mobos and so forth just to have to do it again with ddr3. i like faster everything as much as everyone else, but amd 64 proves ddr1 is alive and well, and ddr2 is what? exactly? perhaps in a year down the road, or two; it'll be worth something at the end of it's life cycle, just as ddr3 starts poking it's head about.
GhandiInstinct - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
Why don't they just screw any other core and focus on pumping out $1000 EEs? Everyones buying them, might as well. I really would like to know the stats for Intel's sales on their new cpus and chipsets, exact numbers.GhandiInstinct - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
#17 I was infering this world is off balance with that reality...Gnoad - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
wow. $1000 a pop for a CPU that gets destroyed by processors that cost a quarter as much. Totally asinine.