P4 3.20 GHz Review

[Ankerson]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1834

[bushmaster]

Even though it's all there in black and white and flash, I forsee quite a few disgruntled naysayers shall be by to dispute that article.

But I had to quote this little part.

"With the introduction of the 800MHz, Intel has put the nail in the Athlon XP's coffin - whatever chances AMD had at regaining the performance crown with the Athlon XP were lost when Intel introduced the 865PE and 875P platforms. Luckily for AMD, the Athlon 64 is just around the corner but it's clear who the winner of the Northwood vs. Barton battle is."

[Ankerson]

Oh I am sure they will..

[dajogejr]

Hmmm...let me see.
90 bucks for a Barton 2500, which overclocks quite nicely...or, almost 700 for the Pentium 4 3.2....

Boy, there's a tough one....
Sorry, nothing against Intel, I believe they do make a good product. But, can you imagine what that price would be without the competition??

Can't wait for the 64 chip...should make things interesting...

[bushmaster]

1st off they are comparing top end to top end. ie; XP3200+ vs. P4 3.2C.

XP3200+ are currently $447 at newegg. The article was about performance NOT price. So as for performance on a top end to top end basis, AMD has simply lost for the time being.
And yes I know "more shall be revealed" when the "next generation AMD CPU is released. But again thats not whats on the table right here and now.

P.S. when it comes to gaming performance (which is what most of us use to benchmark our CPU's) the P4 3.0C still rides above the XP3200+ and is currently priced lower than the XP3200+.

[dajogejr]

Yep, not disputing any of that, I completely agree.
Just waiting for AMD to start kicking tail again...that's all. As you put it, "AMD has simply lost for the time being"

Good point on the Top vs. Top performance, though, that is what's on the table.

Just think, If we all could afford to buy the next newer, faster chip that came out, we'd all have 10 GHZ processors....and we'd be buying new ones every other week!

I do see your point, though...bushmaster.

[bushmaster]

"AMD has simply lost for the time being"

Yes I did put that in there with a purpose in mind. After all I'm posting using an AMD system right now.

[dajogejr]

When I first read your comment, I figured uh oh, I've offended an Intel die-hard.

Good to hear you're with the AMD crew...

[BipolarBill]

Listen up, dirtbag! R. Lee Ermey is a P4 fan!

http://www.historychannel.com/mailcall/

[causticVapor]

Congrats on 2Kposts, Bushmaster.

Yes, AMD has lost for the time being - but considering they are essentially on a four-year-old platform with a five-year-old bus and half the memory bandwidth, and also considering that the 3200+ is a full 1 GHz slower than the P4 3.2, it should become clear who is the winner.

What really surprised me a week back was that the P4 3.0C was actually $40 cheaper than the XP 3200+. At least the 3200+ is not a paper-launched product. However, I forsee in a month or so the price of the 3200+ falling below that of the 3.0C.

For price performance, hhmmmm.... let's see. Well, we have $75 2100+s overclocking to 3000+-3200+ on air, same with $45 1700+s. Then again, we have $180 2.4Cs overclocking to 3.3-3.6GHz on air.

price : performance
2.4C 180:3.5 - 51:1
1700+ 45:3.1 - 14.5:1

While the 2.4C will give you better performance, the 1700+ will give you much better price/performance. Note that not all 2.4Cs reach 3.5GHz, and neither do all 1700+s reach 2.4GHz on air.

2.4C (stock cooler-probably 3.2-3.4GHz)
1700+ (stock cooler-probably 2-2.2GHz)

180:3.3 - 54.5
45:2.7 - 16.6

Still grossly outweighed.


Percent overclocks:

2.4C -- 2.4->3.3 37.5%
1700+ -- 1.47->2.2 49.7%

What do YOU think is the better-value processor?

[bushmaster]

I know for alot of people, including myself, that price/ performance ratio is an issue as far as what people can afford.

But should we really when talking strictly about performance and the processors ability, bring $$$ into the equasion?

We can talk about XP1700,s and so and say how inexpensive they are compared to some of the P4's. But when we get into top end performance processors from either manufacturer, the price differences are so subtle and sometimes none at all.

When you start talking of the price of an XP1800 and the price of a P4 3.0C, you are really venturing into apples and oranges as they are worlds apart.

I am a P4 fan, but I also will not discount AMD for what it provides, nor what it might provide in the near future.


Oh yeah, Thanx for the congrats CV.

[bushmaster]

Also lets say we do OC an XP1700+ to 2.2 and we OC a P4 2.4C to 3.2. What would the benchmarks look like ? I mean one may have a higher OC % ability than the other, but who would perform better at those OC's.

[genesound]

Yeah, it's pretty much over for this round.

As for the next one, nobody really thinks intel has been sitting around on their hands for the entirety of the delay in the Athlon64 do they? I've heard that 64bit is waiting dormant in the prescott core like HT in the (PIII and) P4 was. And prolly other stuff up their sleeves.

This will be interesting...

[RamonGTP]

"AMD has simply lost for the time being"

Lets hope for AMD's sake and our own that it is only for the time being, and not a continuing trend.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Dont know where you guys are coming from or these reviews as the AMD is still the perfromance per mhz King. Its still the most efficients cpu-! You compair the 3200+ (when AMD rated it against its older athlon ciblings) to the P4 at way higher mhz.

LOOK 2.2gig (3200+) vs. 3.2gig P4. Hmmmmmm I think Intel BETTER win or they better just quit now they have a 30% mhz advantage! With a 1 gig advantage AMD would eat the P4 for breaksfast and you all know it. Heck even if AMD took back 500mhz of that lead they would kill the P4 and you know it! So why not STOP compairing it to somthing its NOT. Its not 3.2gig thats what it isnt. You find me a 2.2gig that runs anywhere near this nice in P4 form then I'll tip my hat to you. Till then its means nothing to me other than amd is doing one fine job so far. I mean with top mhz being the #1 limit as we push physics-I like amd's approach. More power PER mhz instead of just racing as fast as you can untill you hit the wall. Now ahving said that I dont think Intel is a bad performer by any means. Just saying your looking at somthing 30% slower and then going-"why aint it as fast" hm.