Platform support
Chipsets and motherboards are in short supply for the Athlon 64 compared to the situation when the original Athlon was launched. Similarly, everything is at an early stage as regards memory. Registered DDR400 modules -- which the Athlon 64 FX-51 requires -- are still very rare, although this situation may soon be rectified. Kingston is the first memory vendor to support the new AMD platform.
As far as operating system support is concerned, AMD will be pleased with the numerous Linux variants that already support its 64-bit architecture. Toward end of the year, the situation could improve further, as Microsoft plans to deliver an Athlon-64-optimised version of Windows XP Professional. The AMD ‘white box’ supplied for our tests came with a ‘pre-beta’ version of 64-bit Windows.
The first 64-bit applications are likely to be 3D games. Unreal Tournament 2004 is already optimised for the Athlon 64 family. Farcry, from German game developer Crytek (which sells through Ubisoft) should also be available as a 64-bit version. Also, Half Life 2, keenly awaited by many hardcore gamers, will likewise be optimised for the 64-bit AMD platform, it is rumoured.
It will take longer for business and professional applications to migrate to 64-bit versions. That may not be too bad, though, as the Athlon 64 -- in contrast to arch-rival Intel’s Itanium -- also runs 32-bit applications very fast. So fast that Intel was compelled to announce the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition -- a souped-up 3.2GHz P4 with 2MB of Level 3 cache.
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Talkback
It would have been nice to see some sort of comparison against the Apple G5. Increasingly the best software is open source and it doesn't matter what OS you use. Is there an open source benchmark you could add to your suite?
Come on industry - AMD has a serious product that could benefit us all! Don't forget, these bench marks are predominantly 32bit tests! Imagine an FX-51 with 2Mb on die L3 Cache (like P4EE).... running software optimized for 64-bit..... Wow!
WOW! You seem all hyped up for no reason. ZDNet gets their benchmarks from a faulty source. Plus they only used 4 processors: the benchmarks I saw used 6. I'm not saying AMD sucks because I hate Pentium, but the new Pentiums kind of own the AMD's without having 64 lines.
This is all fine for the graphics and gaming industries, but what about some serious number crunching benchmarks. What's the integer and FP performance like?
Hopefully it's going to be something like the performance of the old Athlon, which in our production environment a 1.4GHz Athlon beat a 2.0GHz P4!
These are 32 bit bench marks. Why don't you get a copy of 64 bit Linux and run some 32 bit Pentium Extreme V 64 bit Athlon benchmarks to give a real idea of the performance difference.
AMD once again proves that GHz is not everything.
Even test running on the 32bit simulation layer of this 64bit 2.2Ghz CPU outperforms the faster by 1 BILLION Cycles per second Intel XEON processor.
Amazing.... That is why I always choose AMD.
I purchased an Athlon 64 and Asus k8v motherboard. Together they are amazing. I also upgraded to S-ATA and that allowed the system to fully benefit with speed. Overall I think that the Hammer core Athlon 64 is an amazing step forward in processing power.
I've always been an 'Intel person'... but for the first time, I am looking at AMD 64 FX processor as a real option for my next performance PC upgrade.
I say Intel should leave the buying decisions to consumers and not presume to know what consumers want. 64bit or not, whether it makes logical sense or not, AMD 64 is leading edge power and I want one!!
I have always hated intel, this is not due to the processor itself, it is due to the horrible logic behind intel processors. Intel, thinking they would have the advantage by quoting their clock speeds extremely high, has just had their head handed to them with the new 64 bit athlon fx processor. Rather than concentrating on clock speed, athlon has paid attention to what was more important, pipelines. While only clocked at 2GHz for the 64 bit 3200+, it managed to blow intels new extreme 3.2 GHz processor away in the benchmarks for 90 percent of the overall tests (for confirmation, see www.pcstats.com and view the articles on the athlon 64). This is the final showing of just how innovative AMD as a company, I have to give them a big pat on the back, and save one of those processors for me. By the way, some of you are going to make mention that the athlon is running faster because of its 64 bit technology, remember this, all benchmarks and software (O/S) at current run at 32 bit. The true value of 64 bit will not be shown until we get a 64 bit Operating System (eh hem microsoft...)
More than any other application - its High Performance Scientific Computing that needs the extra juice that new processors offer. Obviously it would be great for me if I can finish the jobs that take 2 day in 4 hours.
Although traditionally populated by specialist hardware vendors like Cray, NEC etc with special (i.e. not for Desktop market) processors, today this space is dominated more and more by PC clusters using AMD and Intel processors. The same processors you and I use on their desktops. I would be very inbterested to see benchmarks on how the 64 bit platform will perform agansts the 32 bit one in terms of price & performance when running a GNU/Linux OS and running intensive calcs.
Wow! Just purchased AMD's Athlon 64 3200+
I've never seen anything as fast as this! Amazing! Cant wait for the 64bit stuff to come out! Those cheek 64FX owners must have the fastest personal computers in the world!
Thanks AMD! its wicked!
Oh well, did this come as a bit of a surprise to me? No way! I always knew that AMD processors were superior to Intel ones - be it the number of instruction pipelines used, graphics capabilities or whatever. I've been keeping in touch with the development of the Athlon 64 for quite some time now and its pretty safe to say that AMD has come out tops again!
I just bought an Aspire 1356LMi laptop with Athlon 2800+ XP-M, so going for the Athlon 64 is not possible for me, but I'm eyeing that one for my brother who works with 3D character animation and stuff and is always complaining that today's laptops are not suited for that kind of intensive work.
I'd love to see him get amazed by the performance of this one!
But one thing though, which in spite of being a big fan of AMD none can overlook - that is the heat generated by Athlon processors. I'm very happy with the performance of the 2800+ XP-M with PowerNow! features, but for my desktop running Athlon 2400+ XP, well, at times it seems that you can make poached eggs on the top of the cabinet! ;-)
How will Athlon 64 Mobile cope with this issue of intense heat generation? Obviously it'll have PowerNow!, but will it be enough for a laptop that's turned on for days at a stretch rendering *huge* 3D graphics file?
Ibought an Athlon 64 in the LIDL store on Thursday.
The person from Glasgow needn`t have any worries about it heating up, my processor is as cool as when I started 5 hours ago.
The Athlon is certainly faster that any other PC I have ever used, I can recomenned it.
i read somewhere that the athlon 64 when not in use slowes it self down to save on power and heat i forget where i saw that and is it true
the amd athlon 64 is designed for 64 bit usage not 32 bit and yet it outperforms intels 32 bit line processors in a 32 bit operating system so dont start telling me that zdnet benchmarks are bullshit and that intel processors without a 64 bit mark can outperform the athlon 64 line ULTIMA.
Its more like the intel 32 bit processor should be able to outperform the amd 64 bit processor in a 32 bit environment but it doesnt cause intel sucks and amd owns.
Athlon 64's are superior to Intel's in just about every way
did you know that the Pentium 4's are not capable of processing all 32-bit instructions?
well AMD's can, even the Sempron
on top of being able to process all 32-bit instructions, the Athlon 64's can also process 64-bit instructions
the Athlon 64's are also cheaper than Pentium 4's: the 3200+ in socket 939 is $299 (aus) while the 3.2GHZ P4 is either $355 (socket 775) or $380 (socket 478)
the Athlon 64's have a higher FSB, they skip the northbridge when transferring data to and from RAM, and this is the only part which frequency is better being higher; the core frequency is lower yet they still perform better, even when not in 64-bit
although when they do reach 64-bit, their performance should theoretically double