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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1272
The Athlon 64 FX-53: AMD's Next Enthusiast Part
by Derek Wilson on March 18, 2004 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Introduction
When the Pentium 4 3.4GHz EE came out along with Prescott, Intel was able to take a few bragging rights away from AMD. Today, the answering shot from the other side is the AMD Athlon 64 FX-53. This launch isn't really bringing anything new to the table architecture-wise, but this is a processor with a large cache, high clock speed, and a 128bit memory interface (rather than the 64bits of the Athlon 64 series).
The FX-53 is an Opteron based processor running at 2.4GHz with 1MB of L2 cache. The FX-53 is only the second in the series of FX processors. The third (the FX-55) is due out near the end of the year.
Enthusiast or Just Expensive
This is really the biggest question that we need to answer. We already know that we are not going to recommend this part before the release of its socket 939 counterpart. We've spoken about the issue before, and our recent AMD CPU roadmap article shows the Athlon 64 FX-53 to be the very last Athlon 64 processor produced for socket 940. While this isn't exactly the end of the platform (Opteron CPUs will still be using socket 940), it will be the end of the desktop as a target market.
The upside is that moving to the new platform will allow us to find very fast RAM easily (since it will simply use current unbuffered DDR400 technology), and we should see improved performance from the same CPU.
So, since the Athlon 64 FX-53 processor won't change fundamentally between the two socket types, we should be able to get a very good idea of performance, and an idea of what this processor will actually be worth. The prices on these processors right now are very prohibitive, but before we go down that road, let's see exactly how the playing field looks.
Performance Test Configuration | |
Processor(s): | AMD Athlon 64 3000+ AMD Athlon 64 3200+ AMD Athlon 64 3400+ AMD Athlon 64 FX51 AMD Athlon 64 FX53 Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz EE Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz EE Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 3.2EGHz Intel Pentium 4 3.0EGHz Intel Pentium 4 2.8EGHz |
RAM: | 2 x 512Mb OCZ 3500 Platinum Ltd 2 x 512Mb OCZ 3200 EL ECC Registered 2:3:3 2 x 512Mb Mushkin ECC Registered High Performance 2:3:2 |
Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) |
Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | VIA Hyperion 4.51 (12/02/03) Intel Chipset Drivers |
Video Card(s): | Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X) |
Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 4.10 |
Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
Motherboards: | Intel D875PBZ (Intel 875P Chipset) FIC K8-800T (VIA K8T800 Chipset) ASUS SK8V (VIA K8T800 Chipset) |
For the Athlon 64 FX-53 system, we employed the registered OCZ RAM, as there was apparently an issue with the SPD of the RAM that AMD sent us to test with, which kept it from running at higher than DDR333.
Business Winstone 2004
The higher clock speed of the Athlon 64 FX-53 really pushes it ahead of the pack in the content creation winstone. The percentage gain in score here is nearly equal to the percentage increase in clock speed. Of course, this benchmark isn't reflective of the Pentium 4's ability to handle 3D rendering and encoding tasks better than AMD's processors, but we will see those numbers later in the tests.
SYSmark 2004 Overall
The entire SYSmark run, which includes all the individual tests that we will be reporting, took anywhere between two and three hours to run. The two main suites (Internet Content Creation and Office Productivity) each took up half of the time (in contrast to Winstone, where the business benchmark completes much faster than content creation).
The overall score, which takes a little of everything into account, shows the Gallatin based 3.4GHz Extreme Edition coming out on top, followed closely by the AMD Athlon 64 FX-53.
Sysmark is still new to us as a benchmark, and these numbers don't tend to exactly represent the rest of the real world data that we have collected.
We included these numbers for the sake of completeness, but we are not going to draw any conclusions based on the benchmark, as we have not had much experience with it. We do know that this time around, AMD did have equal input into the creation of the benchmark, and while the FX-53 does put in a good showing for AMD, the benchmark seems to favor Intel's architectures.
DirectX 9 Performance
As we have seen before, processor speed has much less impact on DirectX 9 games than does video card power. Most of the differences in these numbers are negligible, and the higher CPU score that the P4 EEs and the Athlon 64 FX 53 receive in Aquamark doesn't translate to a higher framerate.
Aquamark
DirectX 8 Performance
Unreal Tournament 2003 Performance
Unreal Tournament 2004 is coming down the line very shortly, and we will be adding that to our benchmarking suite as soon as possible. For now, we will stick with the venerable UT2K3 benchmark in the usual flyby and botmatch flavors.
With WarCraft III, we see a change in leadership as the FX-53 nudges out the 3.4GHz P4 EE for the top spot.
OpenGL Performance
Quake 3: Area
Once again, the Q3A engine is ubiquitous enough among games that it warrants being included in the benchmarks.
Our final gaming benchmark puts the new FX-53 ahead of the two Intel processors that have led the rest of our OpenGL pack.
DivX 5.1.1 Encoding
This version of DivX does have support for SSE3 instructions, of which the Prescott processors may take advantage, but the point of interest here is that the Athlon 64 FX-53 is in a dead heat with the Pentium 4 3.2GHz EE. The FX-53 is really putting AMD up into the thick of the battle in a traditionally Intel dominated area. That's not to say that Intel has lost its lead in this area, but that it is good to see AMD giving them more competition.
3D Rendering Performance
3D Studio Max R5
We see a similar situation with Lightwave as we did with 3D Studio Max: Intel leads, but AMD's newest puts in a good showing.
Development Workstation Performance
AMD just adds to their lead when it comes to software compilation.
Final Words
The AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 is a very solid processor. General usage benchmarks put it at or near the top of the heap, games run really well, and it might seem like a breath of fresh air for those who are tired of waiting for their source to compile all day long. The FX-53 also made some pretty significant performance gains in the traditional Intel areas of encoding and rendering. Obviously, when looking for a processor, you want one that will suit the tasks at hand, but the FX-53 has the benefit of being near the top across the board.
So, with a thousand dollar processor budget, what is the best choice? Honestly, the best choice is to wait. It may seem like that's what we've said at the end of every single CPU or graphics review for the past few months, but the giant caution sign will soon be taken down.
Yes, FX-53 is a fast performer. It's just not fast enough to warrant spending all that necessary money on a platform that is guaranteed to be non-upgradeable in a short while. With socket 939, there will be a much wider selection of processors to fill the platform, and there is much more room for future upgradeability. Add PCI Express to that and you've got a platform that could last for a (relatively) long time.
Of course, when socket 939 does hit the streets, we will have to re-evaluate the situation. The FX-53 has potential, but that's not always enough. If we get some good performance gains from using high quality unbuffered RAM with the FX-53, and if we start to see overclocker-friendly boards with plenty of PCI Express slots on them, we might just be talking after a price drop. Right now, both the very high end Intel and AMD parts are priced too high to recommend. The performance gains that we see in our tests just aren't enough to warrant the kinds of price differences currently seen in the marketplace.
So, the final recommendation? If you absolutely need a system now, go with either a Pentium 4 or an Athlon 64 3000+ (Newcastle) depending on your usage model. But just wait if that's at all possible. The end is near, we promise.