Gaming Performance

For the next year or two, games will continue to be mostly single threaded, meaning that alone, they get no performance benefit from being run on a dual core CPU.

It is important to note that the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ is already faster in games than Intel's fastest dual core solutions. With the X2 series, you don't necessarily have to give up much gaming performance in order to reap the benefits of dual core. On average, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ provides around 90% of the gaming performance of the single core FX-55, while being cheaper and offering all of the benefits of a dual core CPU. The choice at this price point, even for gamers, is obvious.

Doom 3

Doom 3 Performance

In Doom 3, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ gives you 91% of the performance of a FX-55, but with all of the benefits of dual core - not too shabby.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Performance

In Splinter Cell, the X2 continues to offer around 90% of the performance of the single core Athlon 64 FX-55.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Performance

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Performance


Half Life 2

Half Life 2 Performance

The X2 gives us about 91% of the performance of the FX-55 in Half Life 2. The trend continues to look good for AMD.

Halo

Halo Performance


Unreal Tournament 2004

Unreal Tournament 2004 Performance


Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Performance


Audio/Video Encoding 3D Rendering
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  • Jep4444 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    I don't like how you use the Opteron to give a rough estimation on the A64 X2 as their are other architectural changes between Opteron and A64

    That aside maybe AMD could bring out X2s using 256KB of cache per core to get slightly lower price points and atleast compete with the 830(3ghz)
    I doubt it'll be too bandwidth limited given AMD is selling Semprons with only 128KB of L2 cache
  • KillerBob - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    It is usual to see that Anandtech favors the AMD, looks at the artificial tests, and not the real-world tests, where Intel wins out (as usual).

    In other tests itis pointed out the the PEE can be overclocked past 4GHz, in which case it'll kick everything's ass.
  • KillerBob - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

  • dannybin1742 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    drool, i want one
  • Doormat - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    Typo P13: Intel's "975x" at bottom of page.

    The high price of the dual core opterons kinda puts me off. I was hoping for 2x the price of the single core, instead of 3.5x (I'm looking at 246 vs 270s). It looks like I'll be going single core (or just holding off) instead of dual core (at least until the end of the year and AMD gets price competition from Intel on the server DC front).

    The 3.5x doesn't even make sense from the yield standpoint. If AMD's yeilds are 70% (wild talking-out-of-my-ass guess, no real factual grounding in picking that number), then their dual core yields will only be 49% (70% for the first core, 70% for the second core). So out of a batch of 1000 chips, instead of 700 you only get 490. Thats 210 chips you need to make up for. If opterons have a Avg selling price of $500, then the "adjusted" selling price would be around $715, an increase of 43%, not 250%. Granted, if AMD's yields are higher, the numbers look better (from our perspective - lower prices), but if their yields are less, it looks really bad (if their yield was only 50%, they'd only get 25% yield on dual core, and would have to double price).

    I guess AMD is just trying to squeeze every dime they can out of this... hopefully that extra money goes to pay for Fab36 and more capacity.
  • cbuchach - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    Wow....Very impressive offering from AMD. I think the quote that sums it up best for me is: "you no longer have to make a performance decision between great overall performance or great media encoding performance, AMD delivers both with the Athlon 64 X2."

    I was very impressed with Intel dual core chips, but now I know that my next system will go back to be AMD-based. Overall the dual core Athlon64 should be killer.

    As for cost, yes it is expensive, but the performance is really phenomenal. I am sure that it too will come down.
  • Griswold - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    All hail teh X2!
  • bob661 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    All I can say is.....WHOODOGGIE!!!!
  • Brian23 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    ME WANTY!!!
  • jamawass - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link

    quote: Despite AMD's lead in getting dual core server/workstation CPUs out to market, Intel has very little reason to worry from a market penetration standpoint. We've seen that even with a multi-year performance advantage, it is very tough for AMD to steal any significant business away from Intel, and we expect that the same will continue to be the case with the dual core Opteron. It's unfortunate for AMD that all of their hard work will amount to very little compared to what Intel is able to ship, but that has always been reality when it comes to the AMD/Intel competition."
    This statement should be qualified. The Rendering market is much more adventurous than the standard server market(didn't they use winxp-64 beta running on opterons to render SWIII?) and will continue to rapidly adopt opterons.There're tangible benefits (faster rendering, lower energy costs=$$$) in moving to opteron for rendering farms. Also more oems like supermicro and broadcom have embraced AMD which should result in much more rapid market penetration than 2 yrs ago.

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