Prove that Athlon64 is better

[prathapml]

Hello to all of you people there!

What I wanted to know is this : How is an Athlon64 platform-based PC better than competing ones? Why would I choose it over other processors/Intel/etc. ?

As a matter of fact, this question is for a demo by a friend, who wants to show that the Athlon64 is best. All that I could come up with (with my limited knowledge) was:

1. It has DEP (data execution prevention) extensions to prevent hacking/app-RAM-overruns.

2. Supports SSE2 *AND* 3D-Now! 2 instruction sets.

3. Runs at good speeds, and still is cool-quiet.

4. Is reasonably future-proof with 64-bit instructions.

5. Could be faster in future, if you use 64-bit OS.

6. It is good for graphics professionals (rendering is faster).

7. Good for gamers (pairing with a high-end graphics card will give superb dX9 quality/performance).

8. It's memory bandwidth is very demonstrably good - winXP would install within 11 minutes.

I want to know how we could prove demonstrably that the Athlon-64 is superior (so that rules out technical discussions about chipset-architecture/caching-methods/Northbridge-SouthBridge integration/etc.).

Please just stick to the topic, and no flaming/fanboy-ism. We don't need suggestions to use something else instead of AMD here.

Where/how can I get worms/viruses that plague us with their memory-overrun exploits (like blaster,sasser,etc.) - for personal use only, he won't be affecting anyone else.

How, if at all, is a 64-bit desktop a better deal for an end-user (who surfs WWW,makes documents,plays music,and shuts down his computer)?

I need more demonstrative reasons (as the above post says), and quickly (within 1 or 2 days). I use the word 'demonstrative' (in the sense that, for example), I can show how faster memory access speed affects you by showing a super-fast OS-install. In the same way, DEP's usefulness can be proved by showing that the widely-cursed worms do not affect an Athlon64-based PC at all.

[Alanoll]

If you really want to find a virus/worms, just go to the P2P network and download some of the 64kb files or so. Alot of those are just virus' trojans.

Demonstrating Video editing and performance, you could use VirtualDub (freeware) to simulate how long it will take to encode the same file on a Athlon64/XP and Pentium4(comparable) and show teh time difference.

You could use Adobe Premiere if you got it for the same purpose (optomized for Pentium I think though)

Better deal, try to throw in the Longhorn side of things. At the moment and when the 64-Bit OS is released, Microsoft has said that it will be availale ONLY through OEMs with purchase of the 64-Bit system. Longhorn will probally change that.

Comparing could also be done with a program such as 3DMark or the like. It will give scores based on how it performs (hardware dependant as well).

Hope that helps.

[IcemanND]

For the NORMAL user, who browses the web, sends, e-mail, uses office, plays music, there is no real advantage to an Athlon64. The advantage is going to come when using those processor and memory hungry applications, such as video rendering, image editing 3D CADD, and anything else with heavy calculations.

There may be some noticable difference in palying #D games but I personally ouldn;t think it would be that great a difference to offset the additional cost of the processor and os. But I'm not the avid gamer.

As far as preventing worms, etc. Smart computing would do just as much as the DEP. The last time I had a virus on my machine was 1985, so that's not a concern, and I don't think that DEP will prevent system crashes anymore than I think the next version of Windows will come bug free (read 0%).

[gamehead200]

The Athlon64 is just a processor that works with 64-bit operating systems. The only one that I know of (as of now) is Windows XP 64-bit Edition. There aren't that many 64-bit applications that have been made yet, so I don't really see a big advantage to installing this kind of processor.

[Crispy]

I think the Athlon 64 has been hyped to much as being cool because of it's 64bit support. If you look at that from a technical point of view it doesn't really do much of difference, even when using a 64bit OS. From a user point of view it makes zero difference, as the programs are required to be 64bit to even have a chance to enjoy the minor speed boost... And I doubt that many user applications will be converted into streamlined 64bit versions within the CPU cycle that the Athlon 64 represents...

Then there's the DEP, which actually should improve the end user experience as a well known exploit type now i gone from the scene... However, as far as I know, only the 64bit version of windows supports it, but, of course, I might be mistaken ...

Another interesting thing about the Athlon 64 is the fact that it has internal memory controller... That means that the low end Athlon 64 (Those just called "Athlon 64"), doesn't support dual channel ram, which really suxx, since speed-o-holics have to buy the far more expensive Athlon 64 FX, which support dual channel ram.

So, basicly, there aren't really any features which scream "buy me!"... The only thing you should be concerned about is performance. The Athlon 64 is, as you say, quite fast and run quite cool.

Personlly I would have would probably choose an Athlon 64, but that's purely because of my geeky nature... The average non geeky user would have no use for the "extra features" ...

[Sunil]

Ok, well im back to impart some knowledge.....

Ok, the atlon 64 is not really the best processor out there (there may be a few that disagree). It merely has optimised 32 bit extensions that allow it to process information faster, the benefits can be seen in gaming and word processing. It does not really add much otherwise (except maybe bragging rights). Now as you said if the person is just a normal home user (characterised by the traits you mentioned) a 64 may be a bit on the extreme and not to mention expensive side.

However if you have the money, why not its a pretty impressive piece of hardware, go ahead and buy it. There have been numerous bench marks that have been done comparing it and the Intel line of Performance processors. Check these out:::;

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040318/index.html

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1550760,00.asp

Now about the viruses, cant really say where you can get those..sry

Sunil

[prathapml]

@gamehead200-

The entire purpose of this thread was that I want to *DEMONSTRABLY* prove how/why an Athlon64 was better than any other.

@Alanoll-

You seem to be able to 'catch' viruses/worms as easily as you would catch a butter-fly. Could you please rar/zip them up and PM them to me? Please remember that I only want viruses that get stopped in their tracks by the DEP feature (in other words, the competing Intel machine should be show-able as "feeling the pain").

Can anyone come up with names of such viruses which aren't able to affect DEP-enabled machines?

@the rest of the posters-

Thanks for writing in with all the info you did - it is surely going to find a place in my demo. Well, in fact, I'm stuck up as to how I could prove the point that this processor has better performance (without the aid of labyrinthine benchmarks and numbers which an end-user cannot understand - they need 'see-able', 'hear-able' proof). Suggestions anyone ?

The responses aren't exactly flying in at the rate that would be cool.....

I guess more people could take a try at hitting the "Reply to this topic" button.

[neophyte]

1.  It has DEP (data execution prevention) extensions to prevent hacking/app-RAM-overruns.

This is only usefull in the event an exploit uses a buffer overflow to gain access to the computer, or to willfully do damage. This won't stop other exploits which don't use buffer overflows.

2.  Supports SSE2 *AND* 3D-Now! 2 instruction sets.

In this day and age, it doesn't really make a huge difference what instructions the CPU uses. I haven't really seen many programs that take advantage of the 3D-Now! instruction set, but I'm sure that they do still exist.

3.  Runs at good speeds, and still is cool-quiet.

This is true, however, the stock fan for the Athlon is not a particularly effecient fan.

As a comparison, my P4 Northwood 3.0GHz CPU has a fairly effecient stock fan, which is somewhat just as quiet as the Athlon. That said, I've removed it and replaced it with an all copper unit, which has a 9.2cm fan running at 1500RPM. At this speed, the copper HSF unit keeps my processor at the same temps as the stock Intel HSF. There are better HSFs available for both platforms.

4.  Is reasonably future-proof with 64-bit instructions.

This doesn't mean much when you're still waiting for software to be developed on a hardware platform that has had around a year or so on the market.

'Future proof' is not something that the computing world understands very well, because no computer is ever 'future proof'. You can only ever minimise the amount of times you 'have' to upgrade your computer.

5.  Could be faster in future, if you use 64-bit OS.

Somewhat true, as it all depends on the operating system implementation, and the software implementation, and how the software is compiled. But generally speaking, there should be "some" performance gain, even if it is relatively low. However, the performance gain may not justify the cost to change over to a new platform, if you've already got a fairly decent spec'd machine.

6.  It is good for graphics professionals (rendering is faster).

Not entirely true, in some cases, the performance is on par with other 32bit AMD cpu's, and even 32bit P4's.

When software is properly optimised, and updated to support 64bit's, this may change.

7.  Good for gamers (pairing with a high-end graphics card will give superb dX9 quality/performance).

Refer to my answer to point 6.

8.  It's memory bandwidth is very demonstrably good - winXP would install within 11 minutes.

Thats the advantage of having the memory controller on the CPU die. However, I can't comment a great deal on the bandwidth to other parts of the system as I don't have an AMD machine.

I really believe that it is a matter of personal preference, and that currently, both sides of the camp have their own advantages and disadvantages. Given that Intel are already releasing 64bit chips (the Itanium was never a readily available consumer chip) in the form of the Xeon (and P4's coming soon), I would think that most arguments are going to be moot.

Also given that Microsoft's Windows XP 64bit editions currently only support the AMD64 platform, the major advantage is definately with the AMD64 (Linux also supports the AMD64 platform).

But, like I've said, it really is more a matter of personal opinion.

[Wraith]

1.  It has DEP (data execution prevention) extensions to prevent hacking/app-RAM-overruns.

Haven't come across anything like that, WinXP 32-bit runs the same as is usually does, coming up with errors with "Could not access memory".

Had this on my old TBird too.

2.  Supports SSE2 *AND* 3D-Now! 2 instruction sets.

Do these make any real difference?

3.  Runs at good speeds, and still is cool-quiet.

Okay, this is one I have to agree with. My Athlon64 3200+ has a stock clockspeed of 2GHz. I've overclocked it to 2.1GHz, where it seems stable. The stock CPU fan keeps the CPU at 34°C when at 0% load (which isn't very often considering I run SETI), and 43°C at max load. And that's WITHOUT Cool 'n' Quiet turned on. So it's still sitting at 2.1GHz when at 0% load. I figure I could get it down to about 28°C or so if I did. I might go try it in a sec.

4.  Is reasonably future-proof with 64-bit instructions.

Too bad M$ isn't getting off their arses and doing something about it. One wonders if we'll see a "proper" release of XP or S2003 with 64-bit extensions. All the ones I've seen are all "tech previews" or whatnot.

5.  Could be faster in future, if you use 64-bit OS.

This is something that I agree with, I did experience a slight speed increase when using 64-bit gentoo, as opposed to 32. While it was there, it was not remarkable.

6.  It is good for graphics professionals (rendering is faster).

I think you pulled that out of your arse...

7.  Good for gamers (pairing with a high-end graphics card will give superb dX9 quality/performance).

Not to be rude, but we've moved to a place where the graphics card takes virtually all of the rendering of games. The CPU does little, apart from things like AI, gameplay etc. - very little graphics processing.

EDIT: Umm yeah, remind me to read the full statement next time

Still relevant though, you can get just as good performance on a 32-bit machine.

8.  It's memory bandwidth is very demonstrably good - winXP would install within 11 minutes.

It still takes 40-odd minutes for a base install on here. Admittedly, that's probably because I'm still installing XP off CDs, but in general it's nowhere near as fast as you quoted. HDD install may be different.

I want to know how we could prove demonstrably that the Athlon-64 is superior (so that rules out technical discussions about chipset-architecture/caching-methods/Northbridge-SouthBridge integration/etc.).

Please just stick to the topic, and no flaming/fanboy-ism. We don't need suggestions to use something else instead of AMD here.

As you can see, fanboy-ism isn't really an issue here

I like it, I really do, but some things just aren't what they have said them to be.

I expected as much though, and even though some things may be misleading, it's still a great processor.

Hope it helps, maybe you should just edit out the negative things when you need to give this "demonstration"

[prathapml]

maybe you should just edit out the negative things when you need to give this "demonstration"

prolly you have just said the most applicable comment with that sentence

@wraith & neophyte-

do make a note of this : I want *POSITIVE* info and I said so in the first post in this thread. Please see my 2nd post in this thread - and do get back to me on what you think - but remember I want to *SHOW* to the average-id***-on-the-street what benefits Athlon64 can bring him.

@wraith-

On a sidenote, just FYKI, WinXP plain (SP2 RC2) installs within 11 mins (in my experience on the A64 3000+); and an unattended install with all possible worldly junk (a 2.5 GB setup process gelled together by means of XPlode 1.00) finishes in approx. 25 minutes. All of this on a space-optimized CD.

Edited July 20, 2004 by prathapml

[Wraith]

@wraith-

On a sidenote, just FYKI, WinXP plain (SP2 RC2) installs within 11 mins (in my experience on the A64 3000+); and an unattended install with all possible worldly junk (a 2.5 GB setup process gelled together by means of XPlode 1.00) finishes in approx. 25 minutes.

Intriguing.

Off a DVD, Network or HDD?

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As for the positive comments, I can't think of any reasons as to why you'd want an Ath64 over a 32. Personally, I'd wait until the software caught up with the hardware before buying into it, as the hardware's capabilities just aren't utilised.

I would've liked to have bought my Ath64 when 64-bit windows or whatever came out, but my purchase was due to need, rather than want. Fried CPU's are fun.

About the only things I can say are:

Cheap.

Cool, relatively quiet.

Nice for bragging.

Really, the only reason is the speed. They're just really fast for the clockspeed.

[Denney]

As Wraith said, having a 64-bit processor is only a real advantage if you have 64-bit applications. Otherwise, your just testing the same sort of performance as any other processor.

You could try some top of the line games (like FarCry etc.) to test graphics performance (show the differences in how it looks). To test most of that stuff though, you need a top of the graphics card and top of the line soundcard.

The only way I can think of to test the processor against others to run some high memory/processing power applications. Applications like SiSoft Sandra, Bryce3D (render some BIG 3D scenes and see how long that takes...). Just find some resource intensive (not graphic or sound intensive) programs and compare results like that.

[rupert86]

The best time to buy an AMD64 system may be Feb '05, alongwith PCI-E and a Win64 OS. Some linuxes are already available, such as SuSe 9.1.

Also, AMD does not have DEP, it has NX. The thing is same: the registered trademark or what else is different. Right now Intel is also going XD (again the same thing but different name) with their E0 Prescott (the xxxJ series).

NX/XD/DEP protect from buffer overruns, but the OS must support it, the upcoming Windows XP SP2 will. So if you see viruses, NX isn't at fault, OS is.

For a normal user who plays music, uses office and the net, even a Celeron 300 MHz would prove an overkill. Who is talking about grandad?

However, working at a PC repair store, installation time matters me/cleint the most. Since time=money. The best thing a home user would get from any AMD system is a faster install time. AND mind it: I am no crazy AMD fan. The credit of faster install does NOT go to AMD. Its because of the faster chipset interconnect, that taiwanese manufacturers e.g nVidia, VIA, SIS employ in their designs. I have tries many Intel 845s, 865s and they take more than thrice the time for a complete HDD to HDD install, than a grandpa's times old technology like the VIA KM400.

If I go out today to buy a new PC, I'd buy an Athlon XP, and up it to Athlon 64 around Feb '05 as I told you ppl. Just because I detest a Prescott. Look here: http://www.intel.com/design/pentium4/specupdt/30235203.pdf

But I am going for a second hand, and it will be a Tualatin 512. Times keep changing for companies, and consumer should see his own benefit. No company will pin a badge on consumer's chest for loyalty.

_______________________________

;config.tXt

;27.06.2004

;21:05 PST

Graphic Card: Matrox Millenium G450 DualHead (32 MB DDR)

Model #: G45FMDHA32DB

Sr #: PBG19967

Driver version: 6.83.017 in Win98, 5.92.006 in WinXP

PD version: 6.83.017 in Win98, 6.92.004 in WinXP

VT version: N/A

MGA Bios version: 1.4.004

Hardware rev.: 133

CPU: AMD Athlon 600 MHz (AMD K7600MTR51B) @687MHz (FSB114)

Chipset: VIA Apollo KX133 (VT8731 + 82C686A)

Motherboard: SL-77KV

Motherboard Bios: L5

PCB ver: M5

Motherboard chipset patches: AGP GART 1.80a from VIA Hyperion 4.51v

RAM: 1x Kingston 256MB KVR133X64C3/256 (@148MHz)

OS: Windows 4.10.2222A & Windows XP 5.1.2600.1106 SP1a

Desktop resolution and color depth: 1024x768, 32bpp

DirectX version: DX9.0b, 4.09.0000.0902 in Win98, Win2000

Hard Drive: Seagate Baraccuda 7200.7, ST380011A; firmware v3.06

SCSI card type: NIL

Sound card and driver version: Integrated VIA AC'97, drv v5.40a in Win98/WinXP

Hardware rev.: 032

Monitor brand: Philips 105S2

CD-ROM Drive (make/model): Asus S520/A, firmware rev. 2.0L

Network card: NIL

Fax MODEM: Amigo AMI-2019E, (also called AM HW 3056) (PCI slot 3 of 5)

Driver Version: 3.37

Hardware revision: 001

IRQ settings and other devices:

-----------------------

Ahsan Zaheer Shaikh

Student

H.S.C.-II

Adamjee Govt. Science College,

Karachi.

[[BM]Crusher]

I've built quite a number of AMD-64 machines and I am very, very impressed.

I think the best things about the AMD-64 architecture are:

1] They're a lot cheaper than the comparitive speed Pentium IV

2] They're extremely fast at running 32bit code as well as being future proof for 64 bit code (obviously)

3] The mainboards are cheaper than the comparitively spec'd Intel mainboards

4] They finally sorted out their thermal issues

5] Just like a P4, you cannot break it easily as it has a heat spreader (finally)

I think it is bad they have already moved from Socket754 to Socket939 in such a short time period...

But, I would highly recommend purchasing an AMD-64 over a PentiumIV for a gaming computer........ however, we still recommend PentiumIV's for business computers, based on their reliability under adverse conditions (heat + no maintenance)

[Gism0]

If you are upgrading now, I would say go for Athlon 64. They are faster than any other amd chip out at the moment, and will excel when more 64bit apps are available (mainly windows 64bit). The ondie memory controller is a huge benefit, and don't complain about not having dual channel, you wont see much of a performance gain with it.

However, I would wait, there are far too many new technologies coming out at the moment for me to even consider upgrading, the main ones being PCI-Express, DDR 2 and the phasing out of legacy stuff like PATA