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  • FlakPanzer - Monday, June 20, 2005 - link

    This looks very promising, my next rig is definately going to have one of these fine AMD X2 processors.
  • cryptonomicon - Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - link

    anand, thanks for the preliminary overclocking results. me and my DFI compadres are very eager to see how this chip overclocks and hope you add an overclocking page section as soon as you receive a production X2.
  • gamara - Thursday, May 12, 2005 - link

    Would be interesting to also see if DC had any affect on SLI performance. Not sure if the driver work of splitting the duties for 2 video cards would be streamlined with a second core on the processor.

  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    #88 are you talking about the PD 3.0GHZ 356US or the PD 2.8GHZ 241US? The 3.2GHZ 530US is the worst price/performance DC in Intel's arsenal it cost more then twice as much as a single core and then some.

    Just like how the 4600+ and 4800+ are now costing more then twice the single core versions.

    I don't understand why people are going to assume the motherboard is expensive. Why must you have the flagship 955X motherboard?

    The lanuch pricing of the 955X is 50US, which is the same as the price of the 925X when it was launched.

    There is also the 945P chipset to consider which also supports Dual Core and is a less expensive alternative price at 38US which is only 1 dollar more then what the i915P chipset cost at launch.

    Since the chipsets base pricing match what the 925X and 915P were at launch we should logically assume that pricing of these chipsets will be similar to what i915 and i925 were at launch.

  • phaxmohdem - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Oh yeah baby 100th post... how often do you get that honor? even if you have to cehat to get it *cough* post 99
  • phaxmohdem - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    lalala ala al ala ala ala
  • philthedrill - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    #97, are you being serious? Read my post on #81.

    Performance drops with HT when there are memory bandwidth intensive apps due to the shared data TLB. The shared FSB also hurts Intel, and it only gets worse as you scale up with more processors.

  • AtaStrumf - Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - link

    Since the advent of HT on P4, AMD has been at a great disadvantage in multitasking scenarios and I thought dualcore would end that. Well, I guess P4 is just better at that. Really ironic, when AMD has touted K8 as being designed from ground up for DC and Intel just slapping two cores together - LOL.

    Nontheless AMD is still doing great with X2 chips, and I too can't wait to get one, since I think we all multitask non-stop, even if we don't realize it (AV, Antispyware, SETI, FAH, Word, IE, Firefox, Opera, Acrobat, ACDsee, Photoshop, Outlook, BT, eMule, ... and the we open a game on top of that). Just yesterday my A64 3200+ S754 / 1 GB RAM gave me real trouble with gazlion windows open, while writing my graduation paper. Had to restart the bastard, grrr.
  • Son of a N00b - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    TY for including OC results...

    maybe a whole 'nother article on this?
  • Quanticles - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    i think if ppl want AMD's prices to come down, then we should all pitch in and build a new fab for them
  • PetNorth - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    #88 (not 48 lol)

    "Pd (3.2) vs X2 (4200+), Pentium D wins price/ performance"

    What are you talking about?

    PD 3.2 estimated cost is $530 and X2 4200+ estimated cost is $537. Not to mention much more expensive board and DDRII. And X2 4200+ simply smokes to PD 3.2 in basically everything.


  • classy - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    Was it possible to drop the multiplier to 11 so we could see the potential performance of a 4400+?
  • PetNorth - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    #48

    "Pd (3.2) vs X2 (4200+), Pentium D wins price/ performance"

    What are you talking about?

    PD 3.2 estimated cost is $530 and X2 4200+ estimated cost is $537. Not to mention much more expensive board and DDRII. And X2 4200+ simply smokes to PD 3.2 in basically everything.
  • wharris1 - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    Sorry about my original post inquiring about NCQ; I failed to notice the PATA notation on the Seagate. Having said that, would you consider comparing the multitasking performance with NCQ enabled and disabled on these new dual core X2s?
  • CrimsonChaos - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    Nice review. I'm in the crowd of those who can't wait for (AMD) dual-core processors to become available. As far as I can tell, the X2 4800 ran games nearly as fast as the FX-55 and outperformed the FX-55 in multi-tasking. So what reason is there to buy the FX-55 once these are released (assuming prices are close)?

    #84 - I do not think that the background tasks of Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware programs use much CPU. Aside from the initial launching of the program, the CPU usage to keep the program running is minimal -- if any at all. I was under the impression they just ate up RAM while running. Correct me if I'm wrong?

  • psyched - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    Anand, was this tested on 32bit version of XP? Wouldn't the #s be even more in favor of X2 should we have the proper drivers and run it under XP x64 OS?

    Psyched.
  • DigitalDivine - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    Pricing for the X2 dual cores within amd product like makes sense. 4200+ is a tad faster than the 4000+ only in mutlitasking mode, but then that's why you are buying dual cores anyway, for multitasking multithreading.

    but once you put intel's pricing in the mix, with intel's capacity to just churn out silicon, they can afford to price these much lower. unlike amd, pricing it down to stimulate demand...

    the x2's sit in the happy middle of the Pd, and the PEE, and the pricing shows that.

    Pd (3.2) vs X2 (4200+), Pentium D wins price/ performance

    but X2 (4200+) vs PEE (3.2), X2 wins hands down. which is kinda sad, the 4800+ is not even challenged.

    300 vs 500 vs 1000, those are the competing prices for the chips... so it's a bit hairy to compare.

    now, dual core 256k or even 128k would be welcomed, as we saw performance betwen sempron 3100+ and the a64 2800+, performace with half the cache is negligable. so if amd makes dual cores with 256k cache or even 128k, that could help with the transistor count and keep the total area small. giving amd some slack in cost, and lower power consumptions. (*but that doesn't necessarily mean lower prices to consumers).

    * i can only hope and dream
  • Jeff7181 - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    #85... with dueling cores Unreal 3 will suck... the processors will be too busy dueling with eachother to run the game. ;)
  • jkostans - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Awesome article. I was reading an article over on tom's hardware on the X2 where they did a little more intensive power consumption test. Here is a quote which really got my interest,

    "However, there is something that we can't really tolerate: the Pentium D system manages to burn over 200 watts as soon as it's turned on, even when it isn't doing anything. It even exceeds 310 W when working and 350+ W with the graphics card employed! AMD proves that this is not necessary at all: a range of 125 to 190 Watts is much more acceptable (235 counting the graphics card). And that is without Cool & Quiet even enabled."

    I just felt this is something anandtech didn't touch on as thoroughly and should really be considered. I mean a 350w PS will fry or shut down using one of these bad boys in a gaming machine. I wouldn't even feel safe with my Vantec 400w PS.
  • stance - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Anand, Please write article showing what future
    games will be like with duel core cpu's and
    if with bois updates performance might increase.

    future game i.e. UNREAL III
  • bcoupland - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    People have been saying that a dual-core processor at the same speed as a single-core one will not speed up games and such, but I beg to differ: In a real-world situation, one would have MS Antispyware and an AV program running in the background, while running a game. Also, don't forget the OS as well as onboard sound, chipset raid, USB, and other various programs. A dual-core cpu, even for single-threaded apps like most games, will pretty much give that game its own core. I am excited to see the dual-cores come out personally.
  • SLIM - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Hey Anand,

    Nice article as always, but why do you think the extreme edition suffers so badly in some of the benches compared to its non-HT brother???

    Is it possible/plausible that some of those terrible results are due to the more cpu intensive apps being saddled on the two logical cores of just one physical core? Do you think bandwidth can really explain the huge drops in performance?

    Oh and thanks for the overclocking results too.

    SLIM
  • PetNorth - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    For those talking about multitasking tests. Look at them carefully and not bla bla bla. I mean: X2 4800+ Vs. PEE 840 and X2 4200+ Vs. PD 840.

    So, in these 5 Anand multitasking scenarios:

    X2 4800+ Vs. PEE 840: 2-3
    X2 4200+ Vs. PD 840: 4-1

    And don't forget that Multitasking compiling scenario from Opteron DC review is missing in this X2 review: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?... Another X2's victory.
  • philthedrill - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Hyperthreading can be a loss when there are memory bandwidth intensive apps. The P4 implementation shares a the data TLB, which ends up thrashing when you have lots of requests that go to memory from both threads.
  • Brian23 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Thank you for the overclocking results!
  • Son of a N00b - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I wont be upgrading to a dual core anytime soon, ill stick with my fx55 on water @3000mgz, but when i do go DC its nice to know there will still be a amd heart at the center.
  • pdr - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Can y'all start adding some linux tests (32- and 64-bit would be nice) on things like dual core? Everybody seems to think that if you want some oompfh in linux you will obviously want to build a mega-box cluster. But I just want to minimize my kernel compiles (yes, I run Gentoo), video processing (transcode, ffmpeg, mencoder, etc) - I don't want to turn my living room into a data center.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    For those of you asking for overclocking results, here's what I've seen:

    Pentium Extreme Edition 840: 3.6GHz was the maximum stable overclock I could obtain with standard air cooling. I had to bump up the voltage by around 5% I believe (it was a while ago so I don't have the numbers fresh in my mind).

    Athlon 64 X2 4200+: The best I could do here was just under 2.6GHz (2.53GHz to be exact). This was with air cooling and no voltage tweaks necessary. I couldn't get it totally stable at 2.6GHz.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Quanticles - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Anand,

    Could you run the real world tests with a single-core Pentium to compare against the FX-55?

    I'm interested in seeing if there's an issue with how well AMD's platform switches threads. If the Pentium beats out the FX-55 significantly then maybe AMD's platform has trouble switching among huge number of threads. This would mean the X2 would be more suitable for multi-tasking among 2-4 threads where the Pent-D would be more suitable for 6-inf threads.
  • nserra - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #61 "hear what you're saying...to me, they don't seem faster but they do seem "smoother". "

    There is an easy explanation what you are saying, for example a game on intel does 50 to 70 fps.
    On AMD 50 to 100 fps.
    Who will be the smoother, the one that appears to be working always at the same speed, because the one that will give you higher differences of performance peaks will of course look "erratic".
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Anand

    Consider that an open invitation for dinner and drinks at The Rocks in Sydney Harbour.
    Ya know, Computex Taipei is coming up at the end of this month...and those circle pacific fares aren't THAT expensive... ;-)
  • nserra - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I was looking at the transistor count of both AMD and Intel implementations of dual core and the look almost the same, despite intel uses 300mm vs amd 200mm. But my point is amd have ondie memory controler and intel Hyperthreading, all in all the processors “look” the same? Could i say this? (5% die for HT vs 5% die for Memory controller)

    Of course Amd have a better design since it drains less power and offers better performance.
  • Jeff7181 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    We're definately interested in some preliminary overclocking results... well... I am anyway.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Samus

    Sorry about that, it's not intentional. I haven't published any overclocking tests for one major reason: the CPUs are still far away from being widely available; I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea based on the overclocking results of these early samples.

    If you guys are interested, I can publish some preliminary findings here however.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Viditor

    If I ever manage to get some time off, both Vinney and I would love to head down to Australia :)

    Murst

    If the differences are negligible (around 3% or less) then I'd say that's due to normal variances in the benchmarks - at a quick glance, that's what the majority of single threaded benchmarks are showing. There are other situations where the scheduler may confuse the picture a bit, but for the most part I'm not seeing any evidence of that in these tests.

    tagger123

    I used 32-bit Windows XP Pro. At this stage the 64-bit version of Windows is pretty much useless for the desktop unless you've got some very specific 64-bit desktop apps that you're using.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Samus - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Anand,

    Why are you continuing to neglect our questions regarding overclocking? Is there an NDA or something disallowing you to discuss the topic?

    -Tim
  • Murst - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    So, is there any explanation why, in many tests, the single core 2.4 w/ 1mb cache is significantly faster than then dual core 2.4 w/ 1mb per core?

    That just doesn't seem to make any sense. Seems like the design of the dual core is not as great as everyone was saying if it slows down applications by that much.

    It just seems like there shouldn't be a performance hit by adding another core with AMD's implementation, but there obviously is.
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    tagger123 - as most (if not all) of the apps are 32bit only, I would guess it was standard XP...
  • tagger123 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    hi Anand

    Would like to know if you used windows xp or xp64 and if so - would it have any performance hit or increase on amd 64 x2
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    "you going to hire anand as a consultant?"

    Nope...but I'll buy the first round if he and his lady ever hit Sydney...! :-)
  • Quanticles - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #63

    you going to hire anand as a consultant? lol
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Anand...thanks muchly for the reply!
    I guess I just wanted to know if you had compared memory timings (I should have known that you had!).

    I'm just trying to get a handle on what will perform well and under what circumstances (I don't know if you noticed above, but I just had a colleague put a hold on a $90,000AUD order because of many of todays reviews...your input really DOES matter!).
    While rendering speeds are the paramount issue for me, multitasking is also important.
  • Jeff7181 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Overclock it! :D
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Nat, thanks for the reply.

    "for some reason the high end P4's have *felt* like faster desktop processors to me"

    I hear what you're saying...to me, they don't seem faster but they do seem "smoother". It feels sort of like the AMD's drive in a lower gear but with higher RPMs, you may be going the same or faster speed but the ride's a lot "torquier" (is that a word?) so you both accelerate AND decelerate faster.
  • GentleStream - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    OK, I'll be patient.
  • bob661 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #51
    Synthetic benchmarks do not generally correlate to real world applications. There's no bias, you're just a dumbass.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    GentleStream

    I'm still working on additional multitasking tests (including a skype/gaming test as well as the multitasking compile test) but they didn't make it into this review.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • GentleStream - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    So where is the multitasked compile test? You did the compile test in the last review for building Firefox but did not do a parallel compile i.e.
    such as make -j 4. That is the test which I was really looking for.
  • fitten - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #46 Actually, no. I use (and write) multithreaded and multiprocess code every day for a living as well as for fun. I can't wait for the X2s to come out so I can buy one (I've been planning on it for over a year now!). I've already got everything picked out, I just need the dang things to be available!

    Btw, I'm also a gamer of sorts so I have to pay attention to both the programmer and the gamer inside me :P
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    "but that possibility is always there."

    I've always been very clear that this is *not* how things work at AnandTech. I specifically delegated all advertising duties to a separate company to ensure that there wasn't even a chance for manufacturers to have any influence on any AnandTech editors. From a business standpoint, you can run a much more successful business if your loyalties lay with your readers and their desires rather than with manufacturers. Credibility is everything and we'd have to be pretty stupid to sacrifice that for any amount of money or manufacturer favoritism. A lot of things in life just boil down to common sense, and how we work at AnandTech is one of them.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    For those of you concerned about favoring one manufacturer or another, remember that these are the very same multitasking tests we've used in every other dual core review we've published here. If I had to guess at why Intel is faster it'd probably be because Intel seems to be a bit faster in things like flash and DVD shrink.

    As far as not including a faster Intel single core, it really boiled down to time. Intel's fastest single core is faster in some of the SYSMark tests as was pointed out, but in other SYSMark tests it continues to lose. I pointed people back at our original Intel dual core articles for an idea of how Intel's dual core compares to single core. Also, I think our earlier articles make a good case for the advantages of dual core over single core, so this article served more as a "Which Dual Core is Faster?" piece.

    As far as the memory timings go, I did not notice any real world performance difference between the two timings.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Quanticles - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I dont know what to think as far as this article or Anandtech in general...

    In this article it seems like AMD destroys Intel in all of the benchmarks except for the ones that Anandtech made. It could be that Intel is just a "better multitasker", or it might not. It would be interesting to do some specific tests though to figure out *where* exactly AMD's chips are getting slowed down in these benchmarks.

    As far as design style goes... AMD's chips have an integrated north-bridge and memory controller. The K8 was designed from the start to handle multi-core. The memory controller also helps with memory latency, etc etc. Intel on the other hand slapped together two single core chips into a dual core. It would seem like Intel would have bandwidth issues, and resource conflicts, but maybe that's not the case. Maybe AMD's memory controller is having a harder time handling two cores.

    What I do know though is that AMD's chips dominate single threaded applications. It would seem like two of AMD's cores should beat out two of Intel's cores, unless there is some sort of bottleneck in the controlling of the cores.

    As far as the biasing.. I'm not sure what to think of that either. Article titles like "The Consequence of Waking Up a Sleeping Giant: Intel Roadmaps Inside" make me wonder. Does anyone remember the OCZ VX Gold memory review? It kinda sucks, but Anandtech needs to make money somehow. It doesnt necessarily mean they're doing questionable things.. but that possibility is always there. =(

    Anyway, I'd really like it if we tried to look a little bit closer at the Anandtech composed multi-tasking tests, and maybe try to create a few more tests to figure out where AMD's bottleneck is. That would be world class.
  • blckgrffn - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I second the need for a high end single core P4 in these tests, even if you just include previous results or something. It is hard for us to flip between reviews and try to make comparisons.

    Thanks,
    Nat
  • AtaStrumf - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    AGAIN no single core/highest frequency Intel CPU i.e. 3,8 or 3,73 EE!

    Look up SySmark 2004 Data Analisys for example and you'll see what I mean (192 for Intel 3,73 Vs. 150/159 for AMD X2 4400/4800) That would make AMD not look so good, so you just skipped that CPU 'cause it messes up a pretty AMD winning or just slightly loosing picture ah?

    Can you say BIAS?

    Hell I'm a HUGE AMD fan, but distorting the picture like this is just not acceptable. Don't just tell your truth, tell the WHOLE truth.
  • blckgrffn - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Viditor:

    Maybe if we had run these multitasking tests in the past, we might have picked up on this trend of Intel actually being faster in multitasking than AMD, but who could really know for sure? I am guessing that we are seeing the benefits of long pipelines allowing for greater parellism (sp?), and since we are doing things that really don't do much branching (like video encoding) we are seeing what Intel wanted to have happen along. Just a thought. I am a big AMD proponent, but for some reason the high end P4's have *felt* like faster desktop processors to me.

    We definitely know that AMDs memory access technique is much better yet more expensive than Intels, so that definitely can't be it. What I found interesting is how the dual core was slower in some single threaded apps even at identical clockspeeds and cache size. Also, in some of the benchmarks, 512K of cache certainly looks to perform better. Did AMD not increase the depth of the sets of the cache to double it to one meg? Or did they take the lazy way out and just double the number of sets like Intel on the Prescott, driving up the latency?

    Sorry for the long post!
    Nat
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    One other critique Anand...

    On the Intel platform, you used DDR2-667 with 4-4-4-15 timings, and on the AMD platform you used the DDR400 with 2-2-2-5/1T timings.
    Please correct me if I'm wrong, but tests elsewhere show that running at 2-2-2-10 instead of 2-2-2-5 is a big improvement on single core CPUs...did you do any memory comparisons in this case (in your copious free time...)? :-)
  • drteming - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    1 core for graphics, 1 core for physics...
  • Jep4444 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #39, when the Venice was launched nearly every benchmark proved SSE3 didnt do much for the core

    i had heard some negative things about the X2 but after seeing this bench(aswell as a few others from other sites) i can put my skeptimism to rest

    hopefully ill be able to pick up one of these things somewhere down the road(i plan to get a new system in about a year and one of these would be a nice fit if the price comes down a little)
  • michal1980 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #44 just crying cause he can't afford one.
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    After reading through many of the reviews out there, it seems that Anand is the only one I've found that does specifically a multitasking (as opposed to multithreading) test. What's interesting is that in all of the multithreading results, the X2 4800+ wins handily across the board...but NOT in Anand's multitasking benches.
    Does anyone have a theory for this?
  • fitten - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    The zealotry is strong in this thread.

    The main issues that will cover all the g4m3rz in here is this:

    (Regardless of brand)
    a) Dual-core is not going to help you play games better in the short term. You're better off sticking with single core.
    2) Dual-core isn't going to overclock as well as a single core of the same core, for obvious reasons.
    D) The most cost effective gaming platform will still be a single core machine. If you just want to spend all that money, buy a higher clocked single core that is at the same price as the dual core. Your games will be better. When prices of the dual cores fall (sometime next year) it may be time to start looking at dual-core.

    If you do almost nothing but play games on your PC, getting a dual core as soon as you can pretty much just shows that you are out for the big ePenis showing you can spend a bunch of money on a gaming rig (kinda like a fart cannon muffler on the back of a Civic - it's useless, but at least it's expensive). In fact, serious gamers will probably laugh because their single core machine will still beat you at less cost. Nothing I've mentioned above hasn't been already said on many review sites.
  • wharris1 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Is the Seagate HD used in these tests NCQ enabled. Sorry if this has been discussed, but I remember an article earlier stating the sizable performance benefit to NCQ that can be observed during multitasking using dual core chips and was wondering if NCQ was enabled in this performance comparison.
  • L3p3rM355i4h - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    wow. All I can say is wow...I just bought a winchester. Now i have to go sell my right kidney for an X2 machine....
  • xsilver - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #35
    I dont believe anand is biased, I was saying that IF there are accusations of bias, it should be aimed at amd, not intel.... #37 has some ideas of what could be done
  • Netopia - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Hey Anand,

    I've noticed of late that although Premier Pro is out, you guys are still using Premier 6.5. Pro is supposed to be very optimized for Intel and though I'm not in favor of any program that slants benchmarks, the fact is that in this case it is simply a real life scenario.

    Any plan on Premier Pro in the near future?

    Joe
  • GoatMonkey - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Doesn't the Athlon 64 x2 have SSE3? I wonder how much of that content creation and multimedia performance increase is due to that. Were the Athlon 64s in the test the latest core with SSE3? I don't know of an FX version that has that yet.


  • ceefka - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Great article again. WOW! These X2s are impressive. The 4400+ is expensive, but not outrageously.

    Release date games.... hmmm, are they multithreaded?
  • Anemone - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Foul...

    You should (not that they would have done super well) have at least put a single core P4 out there. If you wanted to be really thorough since Intel may well go this way, you could have put a 2.13 P-M out there also on the Asus 478 adaptor and seen how well it worked compared to the others too. I feel if you put a single core A64 into the mix you should have at least put a single core P4 in the mix too, say top speed either EE or the 3.6 6XX series.

    $.02
  • nserra - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    It would be nice to see both processors running at the same speed to see the impact of 2MB L2 vs 1MB L2.

    And also some overclock?
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    "If anything I think AT is more biased towards AMD, not intel"

    I disagree...I really haven't seen much in the way of bias on AT at all, but I have seen what appears to me to be extreme circumspection at times. Anand is VERY careful not to let bias interfere in his reviews, and there are times when his caution appears somewhat extreme.
    That said, crisagatie (while so far over the top that his nose must be bleeding) has a small point. Most of the other reviews I've read so far show the X2 with a more substantial advantage than Anand's review does, but I certainly wouldn't call him biased in either direction!

    BTW...Great review Anand and staff!
  • xsilver - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #33 ..agreed..
    If anything I think AT is more biased towards AMD, not intel

    and #32, there is a well known fact that in scientific testing, if you already have a bias towards one outcome (read: amd fanboi) then your results will subconciously show what you set out to say.... that's why in real scientific tests, also known as a "double blind" test, the testers dont know what they are testing and the subejects dont know what they are using ....in this case the subjects are the cpu's so they cant talk :P
  • wien - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #32 Wow... just. wow.
  • crisagatie - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    This is another Inteltech bullshit. After X2 beating Intel hands down in all tests and benchmarks, these guys put up a bag of their own tests (multitasking scenarios) toped by Intel in every single one. Then they say the results are "a mixed bag", with Intel and AMD performing equally...

    You, Anandtech guys, read the reviews all over the Internet! And try believing: Intel sucks! X2 is by far the best performer (even X2 4200+), being at the same time a cheaper option to Intel D 840 and EE.
  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    As to availability, I note from the Dell site that the EE 840 isn't available till June 15th either...

    For applications, I noted in Tech Report's review that they did some very good graphs illustrating results on a thread-basis, and they included the dual Xeon 3.4GHz. It appears that for rendering workstations, the 4800+ blows the doors off of the dual Xeon, at a fraction of the price...
    This just caused me to contact a friend who put a big hold on 12 new workstations he was ordering!
  • Samus - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Anand, did you happen to do any overclocking with the X2? If so, were the results simular to typical single-core 90nm?

    I'm sure there is some headroom and 2.6GHz can be achieved with the X2, which would make it untouchable if it scales accordingly.
  • Zebo - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #20 dude uncool. there is kids here besides I could'nt fiqure out your point anyway? Did you hate it or love it?
  • phaxmohdem - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #27 your dead wrong.....

    I"m a f*cking idiot :)
  • RadeonGuy - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #20 your a idiot
  • DeftNinja - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    ^ Probably because you are a cunt.
  • AnandThenMan - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Scratch my comments about no power consumption tests. How did I miss them? *scratches head* ?????
  • Ender17 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Anand, have you tried overclocking these X2 chips?
  • AnandThenMan - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Very poor (pre)review IMO. Not nearly enough multi-tasking tests, and NO overclocking tests for some strange reason. And what about power consumption tests? Observations on heat output?

    And I agree with #18, the Q3 or Q4 statement with no explanation is odd and getting annoying.

    Hothardware and Thetechreport have much better preview articles.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    dougSF30

    AMD is playing a bit of a word game with regards to availability. When they say available in June, they mean that through select system system builders the Athlon 64 X2 will be available in June. Across the board availability (as in you'll actually be able to buy an Athlon 64 X2 CPU alone) will be Q3/Q4 - that is directly from AMD to my inbox. It's just that availability in June sounds a lot better, much like Intel saying that availability in May sounds good - both companies appear to be playing the same word game ;)

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Ahkorishaan - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    NIce review Anand, I've more or less chosen the 4400+ X2 as my next processor from my XP 2100+. She's getting venerable now, pushing 3 years old now.
  • phaxmohdem - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I just creamed my pants. Who the F*ck wants an 820 Pentium D with you can have a freaking "X2" F*ck yeah! thats Xtreme muther F*cker!

    Its like that "America F*ck Yeah!" song from America World Police.......

    "Wal-Mart, F*ck yeah! Taco Bell, F*ck yeah! X2, F*ck yeah! Pentium D..............(Distant) fuck yeah?"

    wow this is the most F*cks I've seen in a single Anand post, or thread for that matter.

    F*ck it. I'm all for setting records :)
  • Da3dalus - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    When the time comes, an X2 shall be a nice upgrade from my current s754 3200+ :)
  • dougSF30 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    What's with the opening bias?

    (1) AMD, unlike Intel and the 840EE, does not claim to have launched the X2. Providing a performance preview != paper launch.

    (2) AMD states in writing that the X2 will be available in June. Not "Q3 or Q4". This is the second time Anandtech has made these "late this year" comments which contradict AMD's official stated position, with no explanation.
  • Zebo - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Thanks Anand:)

    DrMrLordX, if you really think it's poorly priced consider this. the lowest end San Deigo, aka the "value" line in that series, a 2.2 is $350. Adding another core is only 50% more money inside 4400.

    Don't even start looking at dual opteron 248's which cost $1000 just for processors, not to mention expensive ECC and mobos pluys it's slower.

    I see real value in the 4400 and I'm a huge proponet of $70 wonderchips like XP mobiles.

    This is a workstation chip with a cheaper than workstation price.
  • Ender17 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Great article BTW. AT is my fav review site.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Zebo

    2-2-2-5/1T

    Take care,
    Anand
  • DrMrLordX - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #9, I found it a little odd as well, but keep in mind that, not too long ago, Intel was still winning multimedia and 3d rendering benches on a regular basis with Northwood and Prescott. This might explain why Intel won narrow victories in some of the in-house multitasking benchmarks.

    What is clear is that the X2 is the superior processor when it comes to running lone multithreaded applications.

    The X2 is useful for anyone, while the Pentium D will only shine for people with distinctive usage patterns. Too bad the X2 costs so much.
  • Zebo - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #9 every REAL WORLD AMD wins. I don't even look at synthetics or contrived benches so someone else maybe tells you if Intel won one.:) They tend to do really well in those.
  • Zebo - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Total domination too bad I can't get one now!!!

    Anand what memory timings and CMD rate used in this review?
  • Frew - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Is overclocking the same with a dual core cpu?

  • reactor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    good article, cant wait to see how yonah stacks up so i can make a decision on what to get.

    btw the graphs all say intel pentium D 840, instead of 640.
  • Aenslead - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Is it just me, or did AMD win in EVERY benchmark program? Simply amazing.

    Still, it surprises me to see intel push ahead on multitasking by a tad.
  • Swaid - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I hate the price of admission!
  • anandtechrocks - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Amazing preformance, but half a G is really pushing it for a processor...
  • Capt Caveman - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I hate that we have to wait til Q3/Q4.
  • Brian23 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    While I'm very impressed by this IC, I hate paper launches.
  • Ender17 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Would have been nice to have a 2.8GHz Pentium D so you could get a sense of how the Intel chips scaled with an increase in the clock speed.
  • RadeonGuy - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Great Article Anand

    very depthful
  • ashegam - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I'm having a woodygasm :)
  • nourdmrolNMT1 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    looks very promising

    MIKE
  • potato pc - Sunday, October 20, 2019 - link

    I just looked into this article because my destkop in 2019 on windows 10 has it.

    man its insane how dual cores were powerful at this time.
  • brug69 - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link

    so crazy that this was 15 years ago, and yall never had a clue that there would ever be 64 core processors today...
  • DARK_BG - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link

    Hah I was reading this review 15 years ago and with their prices back then I was only dreaming about the 1024kb dual core ones :) Well I took it 3 years later second hand Athlon 64X2 4800+ :D Still working on Asus A8N-E with a ATI HD4850 now used by my grandfather just to read the news :)
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