maximus
09-25-2003, 02:12 AM
For those of you who have been thinking of going 64-bit on your desktops, the Athlon 64 FX-51 and Athlon 64 3200+ are finally here, but their benchmarks are beaten down by the Intel P4 3.2 Extreme Edition with 2 MB L3 cache. This is mainly due to the fact that benchmarking was performed on the alpha version of windows XP 64.
Read the review at Tom's hardware. (http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030923/index.html)
Note the paragraph on the last page mentioning:
"It's not yet possible to judge the performance capability of the Athlon 64 in pure 64-bit operation, since the alpha version of "Windows XP 64" we used and the dearth of available programs don't allow a clear evaluation. And the 64-bit Linux isn't really practical for daily desktop tasks. AMD delivers its GZIP Packer optimized for 64 bits with the standard package, which is a whole lot speedier compared with 32-bit operation. But a closer look at this fact reveals a marketing trap: if the code is optimized for the P4, too - as it was in our test - then the Intel CPU turns out to be faster under conventional 32-bit operation. So there's no compelling argument for 64 bits there. AMD makes its case using the chicken/egg scenario: Only once a sufficient number of Athlon 64 CPUs are available on the market will the software industry respond accordingly. Besides for solid performance in the 32-bit realm, users should consider x86-64 compatibility as something of a bonus option, even if there's no software for it at the moment. "
Read the review at Tom's hardware. (http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030923/index.html)
Note the paragraph on the last page mentioning:
"It's not yet possible to judge the performance capability of the Athlon 64 in pure 64-bit operation, since the alpha version of "Windows XP 64" we used and the dearth of available programs don't allow a clear evaluation. And the 64-bit Linux isn't really practical for daily desktop tasks. AMD delivers its GZIP Packer optimized for 64 bits with the standard package, which is a whole lot speedier compared with 32-bit operation. But a closer look at this fact reveals a marketing trap: if the code is optimized for the P4, too - as it was in our test - then the Intel CPU turns out to be faster under conventional 32-bit operation. So there's no compelling argument for 64 bits there. AMD makes its case using the chicken/egg scenario: Only once a sufficient number of Athlon 64 CPUs are available on the market will the software industry respond accordingly. Besides for solid performance in the 32-bit realm, users should consider x86-64 compatibility as something of a bonus option, even if there's no software for it at the moment. "