AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 and Athlon 64 4000+ Review October 18, 2004

Introduction

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Indeed, very little has changed within the AMD64 architecture. Most of the improvements have been external: adding support for unbuffered memory at the high-end, keeping up with Intel’s platform improvements by way of enhanced Serial ATA, Gigabit Ethernet, and multi-channel audio support, and boosting the 800 MHz HyperTransport link up to 1 GHz.

While that last improvement didn’t seem to do much for existing AGP chipsets (there aren’t any components capable of saturating 8 GBps on the desktop), it will come into play more in the near future. The big news for the rest of 2004, next to the processor announcements transpiring today, is a progression towards PCI Express core logic. Both the Athlon 64 FX-55 and Athlon 64 4000+ are enabled with those 1 GHz HyperTransport links, which will match up well to NVIDIA’s upcoming nForce4 chipset and its ancillary subsystems.

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Athlon 64 FX-55

Indeed, the incremental model number update from FX-53 to FX-55 represents a straight frequency increase and nothing else. Formerly at 2.4 GHz, the new flagship in AMD’s flotilla runs at 2.6 GHz. And while a handful of AMD64 processors have made a jump to 90nm manufacturing, the latest Athlon 64 FX is still etched used Fab 30’s 130nm process. It does, however, incorporate AMD’s first implementation of strained silicon-on-insulator, which improves the switching performance of transistors by increasing the drive current in N- and P-transistors. There aren’t any official announcements on the technology to speak of, but representatives at AMD claim that the company will discuss it further in the future.

As a result of the silicon process changes, the Athlon 64 FX-55 features different power specifications than either of its predecessors. Maximum heat dissipation is now up to 104W from 89W previously. Apparently, that’s enough of a difference to warrant a new cooling spec too, as the heatsink that shipped with AMD’s evaluation sample included an array of four heat pipes to accelerate the dissipation of heat across its aluminum fins. The heatsink is manufactured by AVC, who currently claims that there aren’t any plans to take the product into retail. However, other companies, specifically Thermaltake, claim that many existing heatsinks should suffice (we confirmed its own Venus 12 works well, even in an overclocked environment). AMD’s Damon Muzny also notes that all retail Athlon 64 FX-55 processors include an approved cooling solution.

More Athlon 64 FX-55

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More Athlon 64 FX-55

All of the architecture’s other features are maintained with the Athlon 64 FX-55. It boasts a full megabyte of L2 cache, which complements the 64KB data and 64KB instruction L1 caches. An integrated 128-bit DDR memory controller supports up to DDR400 memory, in turn giving the processing core access to 6.4 GBps of memory bandwidth. Although Intel has gone ahead with DDR2 memory technology, AMD is adamant that its integrated memory controller is very sensitive to timing, which renders DDR2 unsuitable for maximum performance.

Extra Features

Of course, support for AMD’s 64-bit x86 extensions is an integral part of the architectural initiative. Unfortunately, while there’s a publicly accessible preview for Windows XP x64 Edition (it has a new name, too), the final version has again been pushed back until 2005. Fortunately, the processor’s Enhanced Virus Protection feature was recently enabled by Windows XP Service Pack 2, which is a welcome addition for the early adopters who’ve been waiting to access more of the architecture’s advertised benefits.

And while we’re on the topic of extra features, a representative from AMD recently tipped us off with news that the Athlon 64 FX family supports Cool’n’Quiet technology. It was previously believed that because the high-end FX offers an unlocked clock multiplier, it wouldn’t function properly with Cool’n’Quiet enabled. However, we confirmed that the feature indeed functions properly, and while it normally runs at 2.6 GHz, the Athlon 64 FX-55 seamlessly scales back to 1.3 GHz during periods of light load.

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Athlon 64 4000+

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Athlon 64 4000+

But the anti-climactic truth of the matter is that AMD’s Athlon 64 4000+ isn’t anything new, really. Rather, it’s the Athlon 64 FX-53 we’ve grown to know, dressed up with an impressive mainstream model name. The 4000+ runs at 2.4 GHz and, like the Athlon 64 FX-55, is manufactured on Dresden’s 130nm lithography process. It sports the familiar 89W power specification and should work well with any existing heatsink approved for the Athlon 64 FX.

With an intimate knowledge of the Athlon 64 FX-53, there isn’t much that will surprise you about the Athlon 64 4000+. It has a 1MB L2 cache along with the 128KB combined L1 storage. There’s an integrated, 128-bit DDR memory controller with support for up to DDR400. Memory modules are installed as pairs, and AMD insists that the onboard memory controller works best at low latencies. Corsair’s CAS 2-2-2 XL modules currently yield the best performance, complete with 1T command rates.

The Athlon 64 4000+ features the same Socket 939 interface and 1 GHz HyperTransport link with 8 GBps of theoretical throughput to external core logic. It supports Enhanced Virus Protection through Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Cool’n’Quiet with Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

Although it doesn’t allow higher multiplier settings like the Athlon 64 FX, AMD’s Athlon 64 4000+ does enable lower options, allowing you to drop the multiplier in favor of a higher bus setting.

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System Setup

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System Setup

AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 (939)
AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 (939)
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (939)
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (939)
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition (800MHz bus)
Intel Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz; 90nm; 1MB L2)
Intel Pentium 4 550 (3.4GHz; 90nm; 1MB L2)

MSI 7025E nForce3 Ultra Socket 939 Motherboard
Intel D925XCV 925E Motherboard

1GB Corsair 2-2-2-5 DDR400 Pro Series Memory (2x512MB)
1GB Corsair 3-3-3-8 DDR2-533 Pro Series Memory (2x512MB)

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP 8x
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra PCI Express x16
Detonator 66.81 Beta with support for PCI Express cards

34GB Western Digital Raptor (10,000RPM, 8MB cache)

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2

DirectX 9.0c

Desktop resolution 1024x768, 32-bit color, 85Hz refresh

All power saving options were turned off, as were the Automatic Update and System Restore services. Graphics options under the ‘Performance’ tab were all disabled for maximum performance.

Note also that extremely low latency memory modules were used for both platforms. The AMD64 system used 1T command rates, while the Pentium 4 machine employed 2T command rates.

Benchmarks

PC Magazine Business Winstone 2004 v.1.0.1
PC Magazine Content Creation Winstone 2004 v.1.0.1
SiSoft Sandra 2004 SP2
Futuremark PCMark04 v.120
Futuremark 3DMark05 v.110
Epic Games Unreal Tournament 2004 v.3323
Id Software Doom 3
Crytek Far Cry v.1.1
Valve Software Counter-Strike: Source

PC Magazine Benchmarks

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Content Creation Winstone 2004 and Business Winstone 2004

Notes

The Athlon 64 FX has historically performed really well in content creation applications, and the FX-55 is no exception in Content Creation 2004. In fact, all of the AMD64 processors are able to best Intel’s best offerings in that metric.

Business Winstone 2004 recants the same tale, with the entire Athlon 64 lineup besting even Intel’s top-end Pentium 4 Extreme Edition at 3.4 GHz.

Note that while the Winstone benchmarks will no longer be supported, the applications used to generate the benchmark’s score are still valid and widely used. Both tests work well with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and are considered to fair game until the applications are replaced by new versions.

SiSoft Sandra 2004

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SiSoft Sandra 2004 SP2

Notes

Sandra 2004 illustrates the benefit of AMD’s integrated memory controller. The 128-bit data pathway is theoretically capable of transferring 6.4 GBps of memory bandwidth, and in almost all cases it realizes in excess of 6.1 GBps. That’s more than 95 percent efficiency – absolutely unheard of before the processor architecture emerged.

While the test doesn’t indicate much about real-world performance, it does shed some light on the effects of memory timing. Running at 2-2-2, Corsair’s XL Pro Series modules perform exceptionally. But by tweaking the command rate down to 2T, bandwidth consistently drops to 5 GBps. Although AMD’s claims that low-latency DDR certainly play into its architecture’s current abilities, there indeed seems to be some truth there, as Intel’s memory performance is dismal in comparison.

PCMark04

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Futuremark PCMark04 v.120

Notes

Futuremark’s PCMark04 application flies in the face of the results we’ve seen thus far. It ranks all of Intel’s chips ahead of AMD’s entire lineup, including the new Athlon 64 FX-55. The memory test, while clearly favoring the AMD64 platform, is much more competitive than Sandra would have indicated. Then again, PCMark04 is purely synthetic; we’ll see if delivers any useful information as we dive further into real-world metrics.

3DMark05

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Futuremark 3Dmark05 v.110

Notes

Say what you will about 3DMark05 as a measure of graphics aptitude. We’re using it here in an environment with the same video cards, though, instead measuring system-level performance.

Like the other Futuremark application, PCMark04, 3DMark05 indicates that all of Intel’s high-end Pentium 4 chips, including the 3.4 GHz Prescott core, are better for gaming than the Athlon 64 FX-55, at least in the 3D test. The processor benchmark actually favors the Athlon 64 lineup, though the Pentium 4 is very much competitive.

Unreal Tournament 2004

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Unreal Tournament 2004 v.3323

Notes

At 800x600, the Athlon 64 FX-55 is about 27 percent faster than the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition at 3.4 GHz. That lead carries on through the Athlon 64 3800+, which is also substantially faster than the Pentium 4.

The competition naturally tightens up at 1600x1200, where graphics performance is a more prominent determinant of performance. Even still, the AMD64 lineup maintains a marginal advantage. Nothing you’d notice during game play, of course, but the results are certainly different from what we saw with the Futuremark apps.

Doom 3

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Doom 3

Notes

Doom 3 demonstrates similar scaling characteristics, with the Athlon 64 FX-55 besting Intel’s 3.4 GHz Extreme Edition by a 25 percent margin. Again, even the Athlon 64 3800+ establishes a small lead over Intel’s flagship processor.

That advantage all but disappears upon moving to 1600x1200, though a perceptible gap exists between the top-end Athlon and Pentium 4 processors. We’ve come to this conclusion before, and will certainly come to it again – when you start hitting high resolutions, graphics performance is a limiting factor more so than the abilities of a given processor.

Far Cry

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Far Cry v.1.1

Notes

Same story, different game. AMD’s architecture take a first-place finish at 800x600 , while the Pentium 4 trails by a measurable few frames per second. The results even out somewhat at 1600x1200 though, with the exception of Intel’s 3.4 GHz Pentium 4, which is still about 10 percent behind the rest of the pack. All of the scores, fortunately, are very playable even at the high-res setting.

Counter-Strike: Source

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Counter-Strike: Source

Notes

A funny thing happened as Valve put the finishing touches on Counter Strike: Source: it stopped scaling well. Could it be somehow limited by graphics performance, even at 800x600? You wouldn’t think so; otherwise it’d do even worse at 1600x1200. Nevertheless, the jump from 800x600 to 1600x1200 only sees a couple of frames per second dropped from each processor. As a result, at 1600x1200, the Athlon 64 FX-55 is still 16 percent faster than the top-end Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. Is that reason enough to buy a new processor? Perhaps not, but it’s certainly the largest gaming victory we’ve yet seen for AMD.

Ballistics Report: Athlon 64 FX-55

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Pros:

Performance: Like Mase and Brandy, AMD is sitting on top of the world. It hasn’t relinquished a performance crown for more than a year and the Athlon 64 FX family is to thank. The Athlon 64 FX-55 furthers a lead that was already established by the Athlon 64 FX-53 over Intel’s Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. And while AMD’s position isn’t impervious (Intel has its own retaliatory strike planned…), the performance victor for this round has been crowned.

Unlocked multiplier: Understandably, an unlocked multiplier is a boon to the zealous overclocking enthusiast, especially in light of the latest Socket 939 boards based on NVIDIA’s nForce3 250Gb and VIA’s K8T800 Pro, both of which offer asynchronous bus settings. The clear caveat is that the Athlon 64 FX-55 already requires more in the way of cooling. That might make life difficult for those buying OEM processors.

Platform Choices: When it comes to the Pentium 4, you can choose between Intel’s 925X or its 915P chipsets. Both are highly capable, endowed with the latest technologies, and deployed across a range of motherboards with varying prices and feature sets. With the advent of PCI Express, AMD fell behind a bit, but is now catching up with the help of NVIDIA and VIA. There should be platforms ‘a plenty by the end of this year.

Cool’n’Quiet: After thinking that the Athlon 64 FX wouldn’t support Cool’n’Quiet for the past year, it’s certainly good news to hear, and show, that it indeed does with the Athlon 64 FX-55. While many power users won’t care about the feature that makes their systems run slower, Cool’n’Quiet makes it much more palpable to get the FX into a small form-factor chassis without worrying about thermal issues.

Cons:

Price: Over and over, price comes up as the principal downside to owning the best AMD has to offer. It used to be that the FX was priced in the neighborhood of $700. The move to Socket 939 saw that jump above $800, though, which puts it closer to the $1,000 Extreme Edition from Intel. And unless you’ve been an exceptionally good boy or girl this year, I don’t think you’ll convince anyone to spend $829 on a gift.

Ballistics Report: Athlon 64 4000+

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Pros:

Performance: It’s essentially an Athlon 64 FX-53 – of course it boasts excellent performance! The Athlon 64 4000+ runs at the same speed as the 3800+, even. It just has more cache, which gives it a slight advantage in some applications, while others don’t seem to be affected.

Feature Set: One of the great things about the Athlon 64 FX lineup is that it includes all of the features that make AMD64 so impressive. There’s the full 1MB L2 cache, the dual-channel memory controller, Socket 939, 1 GHz HyperTransport, and Cool’n’Quiet. While the 4000+’s multiplier doesn’t allow upward mobility, it can be clocked lower to accommodate aggressive bus speeds while maintaining a manageable processor frequency. AMD’s Athlon 64 4000+ includes all of the other feature prevalent on the FX, at a slightly lower retail price.

Cons:

Price: Unfortunately, the 4000+ is also nearly as expensive as an FX-family chip, too. At $729, it probably won’t push the 3800+ much lower, either.

The FX Factor The fact that AMD has a processor purportedly equivalent to what we would have expected from a 4 GHz Pentium 4, while Intel reportedly canceled plans for the product certainly plays to AMD’s favor with regard to marketing. However, an enterprising enthusiast would be better served by seeking an FX-53 online now, before they’re extinct, at a significantly lower price than the 4000+ being introduced.

Final Verdict

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AMD Athlon 64 FX-55

FiringSquad says:

We’re going to start seeing motherboards based on NVIDIA’s nForce4 and VIA’s K8T890 chipsets, both of which enable PCI Express support. While there still might not be any tangible benefit to using PCI Express on the desktop quite yet, the architectural pieces are now in place for the applications forecasted to employ more I/O bancwidth. The bus topology itself is there, the 1 GHz HyperTransport link is there, and the low-latency pathway from processor to memory is there.

In a nutshell, the Athlon 64 FX-55 is another flagship chip with best-in-class performance selling for top dollar. If you can afford it, value probably isn’t top priority. Then again, it doesn’t hurt to mention that the processor’s main competition bears a retail price nearly $200 higher.

On the other hand, there isn’t much reason to go looking for an Athlon 64 4000+ at this point. The chip performs admirably, also topping the 3.4 GHz Extreme Edition in pretty much every relevant gaming benchmark that we’ve run. However, there are still plenty of Athlon 64 FX-53 processors out there that cost less and come with unlocked clock multipliers. Since the two chips are nearly one in the same, it’d be more economical, ironically, to go with the higher-end FX-53.

That AMD is now running into complications with naming processors that feature similar specifications was inevitable given the mixing and matching of memory controllers, cache sizes, and clock frequencies. However, once the FX-53 is unavailable, the 4000+ will become a more attractive option.

Intel is naturally working on a follow-up to its 3.4 GHz Extreme Edition, which first emerged back in February. That product is expected to center on the Prescott architecture and should be a fair bit faster than the products available today. Will it be enough to leapfrog AMD? A little birdie told us that we’d find out before the end of 2004.