Best Bang For the Buck? AMD CPU

All about them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

suchageek
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:25 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO

Best Bang For the Buck? AMD CPU

Post by suchageek » Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:34 pm

I am currently running an Intel and want to run cooler and quieter. Have been out of the AMD loop for a few years and it's rather confusing. :?

From what I have read, I should get a Venice core. What is the best bag for the buck speed wise?

Thanks in advance!

tempeteduson
Posts: 189
Joined: Sat Jun 05, 2004 12:56 pm
Location: Houston, Texas
Contact:

Post by tempeteduson » Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:43 pm

I've been out of the Intel loop for a while. :D

If you can define bang for the buck in terms of price per performance point (in the performance rating), I think the cheapest Venice, the 3000+, takes the honor. The 3200+ isn't much worse in that respect, and may be worth the extra dollars. The 3500+ is even more expensive for its rating but may be more suitable for gaming. I don't think you should even touch the 3800+ and higher if you want bang for buck.

Perhaps some others can comment?

EDIT: Below are the price-per-performance-point figures for the retail Venice CPUs at Newegg.

3000+: $0.048667
3200+: $0.059375
3500+: $0.076286
3800+: $0.096579

Oddly, the retail versions of these at Newegg tend to be cheaper than the OEM parts. :?
Last edited by tempeteduson on Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

suchageek
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:25 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO

Post by suchageek » Tue Jul 26, 2005 2:18 pm

What I am referring to is also known as the sweet spot. For instance, the fastest prcessor is alsways going to be a premium price. Back in the old days, it used to mean buying a CPU that was a notch lower than the fastest one. Now, there is a much bigger variety.

I'd rather get something higher than the 3000+.

Thanks for your input.

StarfishChris
Posts: 968
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 7:13 pm
Location: Bristol, UK
Contact:

Post by StarfishChris » Tue Jul 26, 2005 2:28 pm

Get the 3200+ if you're not interested in overclocking it. If you are, the 3000+ is just as good.

FYI, price per MHz (better for comparison in a single family?)
3000+ $0.081
3200+ $0.095
3500+ $0.121
3800+ $0.153
Last edited by StarfishChris on Tue Jul 26, 2005 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

suchageek
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:25 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO

Post by suchageek » Tue Jul 26, 2005 2:46 pm

No, my overclocking days are over. Want cool and quiet.

I'm moving from an Intel 2.6C (800 FSB) and I'm wondering if the 3200+ is going to be a lot faster.

Thanks btw.

Mar.
Posts: 561
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:58 pm

Post by Mar. » Tue Jul 26, 2005 4:39 pm

Why not go for the San Diego 3700+?

darthan
Posts: 237
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 1:28 pm
Location: San Francisco

Post by darthan » Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:08 pm

Whether or not one of those AMD CPUs will feel faster is somewhat up to how you use it. If you are doing gaming then any of those CPUs is significantly faster than your Pentium. Actually, for most demanding tasks any Venice will be significantly faster than your P4. However, for normal web browsing, emailing, music playing, simple multitasking stuff your P4 2.6C will probably have a snappier feel because of the hyperthreading. My 2.4C definitely had a nice "snappy" feel to it when launching and running Thunderbird/iTunes/Firefox that type of thing all at once.

If you are looking for best bang for the buck you really should go with the 3000+. Of course, if you require a minimum amount of bang then you have to decide exactly what amount that is. The Venice core processors should scale completely predictably with clock speed.

amplemind
Posts: 67
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2005 2:35 pm
Contact:

Post by amplemind » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:03 pm

3000+ hands down.
I'd rather get something higher than the 3000+.
Then you aren't looking for the "sweet spot".

suchageek
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:25 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO

Post by suchageek » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:42 pm

amplemind wrote:3000+ hands down.
I'd rather get something higher than the 3000+.
Then you aren't looking for the "sweet spot".
:lol: Point taken.

suchageek
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:25 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO

Post by suchageek » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:53 pm

darthan wrote:Whether or not one of those AMD CPUs will feel faster is somewhat up to how you use it. If you are doing gaming then any of those CPUs is significantly faster than your Pentium. Actually, for most demanding tasks any Venice will be significantly faster than your P4. However, for normal web browsing, emailing, music playing, simple multitasking stuff your P4 2.6C will probably have a snappier feel because of the hyperthreading. My 2.4C definitely had a nice "snappy" feel to it when launching and running Thunderbird/iTunes/Firefox that type of thing all at once.

If you are looking for best bang for the buck you really should go with the 3000+. Of course, if you require a minimum amount of bang then you have to decide exactly what amount that is. The Venice core processors should scale completely predictably with clock speed.
I may be selling my XBox to cover part of the cost, so I will shift back to my PC for some gaming. You say your 2.4C had a snappier feel. I went with Intel this time around specifically for HT. I do a fair bit of multitasking and would miss that snappiness. So if I go with a faster processor speed than the 3000+ in your opinion, would that help compensate?

If anything, I just don't want to go overboard, so no worries about minimum bang. :)

suchageek
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:25 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO

Post by suchageek » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:57 pm

Mar. wrote:Why not go for the San Diego 3700+?
Why the San Diego over the Venice?

(I have a lot of reading to do).

darthan
Posts: 237
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 1:28 pm
Location: San Francisco

Post by darthan » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:01 pm

Since you plan to game on this machine go with the 3000+ and don't look back. The snappiness is a small difference but A64s are the way to go for gaming (plus they run cooler and thus quieter) and I seriously doubt you'll complain. A faster one wouldn't help with the snappiness, it's the hyperthreading that does it, not the speed (well, a dual core A64 would have it, but they are outrageously expensive and waaaayyyyy out of any sweet spots).

Mar.
Posts: 561
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:58 pm

Post by Mar. » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:12 pm

suchageek wrote:
Mar. wrote:Why not go for the San Diego 3700+?
Why the San Diego over the Venice?

(I have a lot of reading to do).
San Diego CPUs have 1MB of L2 Cache, Venice CPUs only have 512K.

Mar.
Posts: 561
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:58 pm

Post by Mar. » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:14 pm

My opinion about CPU upgrading is, unless you can get a CPU that's AT LEAST 66% faster (preferably twice as fast), it's not worth the money. And usually, that's impossible within a single socket type, so it's better to upgrade the motherboard too. If you're smart about what socket you get though, that's not a certainty by any means.

So, if you had an intel CPU that was roughly equivalent to a PR of 2000+ in A64 terms, a San Diego 3700+, Venice 3800+, or San Diego 4000+ would be the logical step up. If you plan on overclocking, the 3700+ would be a better buy than the 3800+ in this case.

~El~Jefe~
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 2887
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:21 pm
Location: New York City zzzz
Contact:

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:20 pm

sweet spot is anything that doesnt suck.

if it's 40000 dollars or 3 cents, if it doesnt suck BAM thats the sweet spot.

anything not overclocked that isnt 2.2 ghz hit's the suck spot, considering all the technology out there and how well a san diego can undervolt, blah blah, you know, sweet is what doesnt suck I say.

i have a 754 3000, the 2.0 ghz. a new 3000 on a 939 platform is like 1.8ghz. i duno about that being a sweet thing. maybe a 10 mhz motorola chip is sweet then? (i had many of these in a bag once).

well despite my sarcasm, i still wouldnt touch anything under 2.2 ghz if you need to run something with performance this year.

if not, i guess 2.0 ghz with 512KB cache is good on a venice core. (dont look at the dumb number system, its relatively meaningless.)

BY THE WAY:

an intel extreme edition with 2 megs cache is SLOWER than a 754 socket using a 3700 chip which cost like 250 dollars on a board thats 80 bux with any combination of random ram you like. Think thats nuts? look at benchmarks for any game.... it IS nuts, but thats what you get. its like 2x the speed of your 2.6. not for windowing, in that area it will be faster just not 2x the speed.

Mar.
Posts: 561
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:58 pm

Post by Mar. » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:27 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote: ...anything not overclocked that isnt 2.2 ghz hit's the suck spot...

...i still wouldnt touch anything under 2.2 ghz if you need to run something with performance this year....

...(dont look at the dumb number system, its relatively meaningless.)
I agree that the PR rating is BS, but you can't depend on clock speed as a gauge for performance. For example, a 2.2 GHz socket 939 CPU would completely own a 2.2 GHz socket A CPU.

The Athlon XP 3200+ runs at 2.2 GHz, I wouldn't consider it's performance as competitive with ANY Athlon 64.

suchageek
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:25 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO

Post by suchageek » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:46 pm

Thanks for all of the replies guys. Slightly differing views are a good thing I suppose. More food for thought.

I like the idea of more cache, I have read that doesn't matter, but I never could figure out why AMD always used half of what Intel does. I guess the thinking was that it didn't matter and something waaaaay down in the wafer did some other magic.

Sounds like I may miss my HT. :(

As for the mobo, it''ll be a 939 on an Abit AN8 Ultra for the passive cooling and chipset.

EDIT: This is very interesting! http://heh.pl/&Mr

Ozy666
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 8:50 am

Post by Ozy666 » Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:22 am

Cache doesn't matter so much because AMD64 has such rockin' memory bandwidth and low memory latency.

Mar.
Posts: 561
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:58 pm

Post by Mar. » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:14 am

Ozy666 wrote:Cache doesn't matter so much because AMD64 has such rockin' memory bandwidth and low memory latency.
It would be more accurate to say that a large cache doesn't matter as much as it does on an intel chip, which is of course true. But more is always better, especially when you consider that the whole point of a cache is to provide faster access than memory for commonly-accessed data.

In terms of speed vs. storage, computers have a multi-tiered setup of slower, but also larger and cheaper memory as you get further from the CPU. It's like this:

Registers
CPU Cache
Main Memory
HDD

I might be missing one or two, like HDD Cache, but the HDD cache doesn't really fit here, since it's much smaller than main memory and is really only an extension of the hard drive. A better-designed OS would probably eliminate the need for it completely.

Anyway though, the more CPU cache you have, the better off you are. Even though the memory can be accessed quicker in an AMD system, it doesn't come anywhere close to the speed of the CPU cache, otherwise the CPU cache would be redundant and unnecessary.

jackylman
Posts: 784
Joined: Sun May 22, 2005 8:13 am
Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Post by jackylman » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:42 am

Why not get a 3000 right now and wait for AMD to bring out the new socket and 65 nm process? Then 939 90nm dualies will be a lot cheaper.

frostedflakes
Posts: 1608
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:02 pm
Location: United States

Post by frostedflakes » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:46 am

I doubt the San Diego is worth it, though. In the benchmarks I've seen, the only area cache has a large impact on is gaming. For most other tasks, the benefit is neglegable. Considering the lowest-speed San Diego is gonna set you back $330+, I don't think they really fall under the bang/buck category.

The 3200+ "Venice" is what I would suggest. It's only like $20 more than the 3000+.

ChrisH
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 65
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2002 10:44 am
Location: Charlotte, NC USA - Go Panthers!

Post by ChrisH » Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:19 pm

frostedflakes wrote:The 3200+ "Venice" is what I would suggest. It's only like $20 more than the 3000+.
I've been tracking the prices for a new computer. The 3200+ is usually $40-$50 more than the 3000+. For those in the US, eWiz has lowered the price of the 3000+ Venice to $119.95. That is the best price I've seen by far.

frostedflakes
Posts: 1608
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:02 pm
Location: United States

Post by frostedflakes » Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:40 pm

Thanks for the heads up, I thought that deal was over. :)

In that case, the 3000+ from eWiz looks like the best buy, as long as you mind purchasing an OEM processor.

~El~Jefe~
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 2887
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:21 pm
Location: New York City zzzz
Contact:

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:17 pm

I would go venice.

you can undervolt it nicely and maintain stock speeds. who knows when more cache is involved. Sometimes people want to go more cache less clock for a possibly cooler chip at load, I guess this works a tad.

i like more cache for some reason myself. shrugs. however:

AMD64's have severely low clock speeds. 2.0-2.2-2.4

anything else is amd overclocked for you special, not an spcr normal setup. (also not really needed for a good while!)

so say you get a 3.0 ghz chip with 512k cache, you get an up to 3.2 with same cache,

eh, not a biggie. That's intel. and its cache starved, memory starved, quality starved too! nah, its ok, just not for us here. but the small bumps in .2 ghz dont do squat for anyone besidse ye old video compression. i hate video compression comparisons. who the heck does that on an hourly basis . that was a side note. anyways.

what IS a big difference is a 10% increase in clock speed from 2 to 2.2. so, this does more than just cache for gaming especially, but for just about anything actually. the lesser cache version with one bump up in speed is about the best bet for silent and price. the 2.2ghz venice with 512 will carry you to 2007 I am guessing. (i dont normally guess for people, but I think this is a safe bet for your wants)

ronrem
Posts: 1066
Joined: Sun Jan 16, 2005 2:59 am
Location: Santa Cruz

Post by ronrem » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:36 am

1 1/2 years ago a stock 3000 venice would have ripped the tonsils out of the hottest game rig available. Are you playing games with $ on the table? No? A 3000 or 3200 ,stock,is the best combo of power+quiet EVER. You can go with the big passive heatsinks,can use the modern 939 socket NF4 mobos,getting all those modern features. You can OC a 3000 up a tad to get the extra zip of a 3200 without much extra heat....and the 3000 is the lowest $ of the Venice line. Venice has some advantages over winchester core,which had some over the Newcastles.

San Diegos are relative hot rod items-more $,more heat,and more heat =more fan rpm. An A64 Venice is hardly a slug for 99% of what things a puter does. A few folks are obsessed with vid game frame rates,seeking the total max,rather like a drag racer spending $20.000 on an engine. That $20,000 engine is not gonna run quiet,is gonna suck fuel,is not so good for commuting

You get a 3000 venice,The ABIT mobo with the heatpipe chipset cooler,a Scyth Ninja,and you have power plus quiet at a decent price.

~El~Jefe~
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 2887
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:21 pm
Location: New York City zzzz
Contact:

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Thu Jul 28, 2005 6:45 pm

ADA3200DAA4BW


I really dont care what anyone says. this is the chip I would want anyone I am friends with to have, at minimum. and retail boxed is good. few bux for oem and you get no decent warranty.

2.0ghz is the min for people who are planing on not upgrading very often at all.

Mikael
Posts: 206
Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2004 3:12 am
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Post by Mikael » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:44 am

suchageek wrote:No, my overclocking days are over. Want cool and quiet.
Actually, you wont get higher temps with a 3000+ overclocked to 3500+ frequencies than you'd get with a stock 3500+, given that the voltage isn't increased. Since pretty much all Venice cores are very good overclockers, there's a very high probability that you can reach even 3800+ leveles without increasing the core voltage. I actually just ordered a 3000+ Venice for a computer I'm building for a friend. It will be cooled by a Zalman 7000AlCu and low noise is of prime importance. BUT, we will overclock this CPU to atleast 2.2GHz. Probably higher. I'll try to get back to you with results!

~El~Jefe~
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 2887
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:21 pm
Location: New York City zzzz
Contact:

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:46 pm

oc'ing stresses the system and also might not work with whatever ram the person wants to get.

eh. i mean, its an option, just never one I would do. I always work another week, wait that week and bam, i have enough for the higher model that is built for that speed without messsing with multipliers.

shrugs

suchageek
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:25 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO

Adding The X2 Into The Mix

Post by suchageek » Sat Jul 30, 2005 1:38 pm

I have spent the last several hours doing a lot of reading and I'm looking at the 3800+ X2. The price is around $370+ or so but since they are just being released I think it will drop a little in the next few weeks. The official launch date is 8/1 even though they are available now. I like the idea of multitasking and running it on a cooler AMD.

~El~Jefe~
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 2887
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:21 pm
Location: New York City zzzz
Contact:

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:46 pm

you know what?

when all is said and done, this SHOULD blow away any other choices out there. dual 64 should be so great that ghz shouldnt make a big difference.

however, it does get a good deal hotter/more wattage usage than single core, so really, venice is the coldest solution for tweaking or non tweaking setups.


although i myself would never buy one, im saving for a 4400. :twisted:

Post Reply