[seasontrade]

I need an opinion on upgrading my old P4 northwood 1.8G to either Athlon64 3200+/Pentium 4 3.2G (prescott). How much faster (in term of %) can I gain by upgrading?

Thanks a lot for your help!!!

[Drec]

no one can give you an exact % but trust me you WILL notice a huge difference.

and

[whozyodaddy]

Go here. Your questions will be answered! Mwahahahhahah

[Edo]

Alot faster. No % possible, but the difference will be "incredible".

[Dell_Axim]

It will be more than three times the speed. I have found that my 3000+ Athlon 64 gets 7.2Mkeys/sec in RC5-72 while my 2.4GHz P4 gets 3Mkeys/s in RC5-72; it's more than twice as fast. Therefore, it's equivalent to a 5.76GHz P4 - really impressive.
64 bits makes a whole lot of difference.

Now, as for Athlon 64 3200+ vs. 3.2GHz P4, they're more or less equal if the P4 has EMT64. Otherwise, the Athlon 64 will be superior.
Oh, and don't forget to use a 64 bit kernel for a 64 bit CPU.

[ropey]

One can not with accuracy quantify the two processors without many and varied benchmarks. Suffice it to say that you will find a great degree of noticeability on all fronts.

There will be no difference between the 64bit subsystem and the same system with 64bit disabled unless one is using 64 bit OS and 64 bit hardware drivers. Since there is really very little software out there for 64bit desktop use one can say with a great degree of accuracy that at this time one can not really make much use on a desktop system of 64 bit. However, that being said, when one excludes the desktop marketing ploy of 64bit and looks at raw power there is no doubt that the A64 is a most robust system.

Personally I like the Intel systems better as I find the chipsets and chips are more stable and snappy on the 800mhz bus and a i865/i875/i925 chipset. If you are to be multi-tasking or encoding multi-media or database number crunching of large volumes you would do better with the Intel system and if you are single tasking volume such as gaming or media playback you would do better with the AMD system although the referential draw line is becoming very tenuous so that the argument vs one system and another is less and less arguable.

R

[avalanche83]

That is not true about the A64's. The whole mobo is set up different because of the hyper transport bus. Here is how my A64 2800 @ 2.43GHz compares to a P4E 570 @ 3.8GHz and so on.

http://www.cryo-laboratory.com/uploa...%20bus%202.JPG

[RJARRRPCGP]

Gee wiz, I would believe that even my Athlon XP T-bred OC'ed to 2.34 ghz would whoop it with no doubt!!!

[ropey]

One single test of SiSoft Sandra and you say, "Here is how my A64 2800+ compares to an Intel 4.8GHz?" This is (IMO) a useless method of chip/chipset comparison and a wholly inaccurate statement to the person requesting the information.

If I posted a single test on multi-medi encoding of the two above processors the Intel would massacre the AMD and still would NOT be any form of a complete test and would be unfair to both processors should I say, "Here is how an Intel 3.8 fares against the A64 2800+.

How can one even think that a single test on a platform (Sandra) that is not known for accurate quantification at the best is a holistic test.

Complete and utter foolishness all the while being totally inaccurate and does not whatsoever give any degree of testing proofs of one chip/chipset vs another chip/chipset.

R

[avalanche83]

That is integer and floating point tests. The dhrystone and whetstone are roughly the same outcome. If you know of any other software that has similar benches let me know and I will try it out.

[jenko]

For games i would go for the A64, but as i use nero vision express,dvdshrink,dvd santa and win avi alot i kept my 3ghz presscot and sold the a64 3000+ rig as i couldnt notice the differance in games but i did notice the presscot so much faster in the programs mention.

[MrSeanKon]

For video programs susch as Virtual Dub, XPEG, DrDivx etc Prescott CPUs are faster than A64s (754+939).
I haven't got X2 of course it is a new generation anyway.
I do not play games so I do not care for gaming performance.
Any Intel is bad for pure Mathematical programs cos of poor FPU (that's why I have both systems).
So if you are thinking A64 3200+ vs Prescott you should clear your criteria.

[mx101]

Your going to love the differents