AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Processor Review

Supplied by AMD

Pushing the envelope

AMD comes charging out of the gate on the 400 MHz Front Side Bus Athlon XP
3200+. Frame rates are going to jump as AMD continues to push the performance
envelope. The Athlon XP 3200+ is here and we took a unique twist to the round
of benchmarks. Should the 3200+ be on your shopping list? A lot depends on what
you have already.

One might ask why bother buying a Athlon XP 3200+ with Opteron making its
way onto the market and Athlon 64 only a few months away. This may leave PC
buyers in a bit of a quandary. The question is to upgrade now or wait.

The reality is that we don’t know with any certainty what 64-bit
computing will do to the marketplace. We won’t wake up and cry out “holy
crap my old 32-bit computer I had yesterday is a piece of garbage!” when
the sun rises on the morning of the Athlon 64 launch. The world doesn’t work
that way. All of us have sunk our hard earned dollars into PC hardware and software
and the thought of obsolescence makes us cringe.

Manufacturers recognize this reality and continue to “one up” each
other in order to capture your upgrade dollars. The transition to future 64-bit
computing technology will be relatively slow and it is safe to say that 32-bit
computing will take some time to move into the shadows. In the meantime there
is the need for ever faster and better and AMD continues to answer this call
with their latest 2.20 GHz Athlon XP 3200+.

The Athlon XP 3200+ core hasn’t undergone any changes from previous Barton
core processors. It still sports approximately 54.3 million transistors on a
101mm2. die and features 128KB of L1 cache and 512KB of L2 cache for a total
of 640KB.

The difference is the Front Side Bus speed. AMD raises the stakes by bumping
up the FSB to a speedy 400 MHz.

Athlon XP 3200+ Specifications

For more information on the Barton core see the Model
10 Data Sheet on the AMD website.

Making things go faster

AMD has made two obvious changes to their processors over the last year. The
first was to move to the Barton core with the increase in cache and the second
has been to bump up the Front Side Bus speed from 266 MHz to 333 MHz and now
to 400 MHz. The importance of this may not be immediately apparent. Cache and
Front Side Bus speed are only two facets of processor technology but they can
have a rather large impact on performance.

Cache is on die memory that works very much faster than main
memory. It has a far greater bandwidth to the processor core. How the cache
works is difficult to “layman-ize” but we’ll attempt to do so.

If you were to get up and walk across the room and open a door the process
could be broken down into thousands if not millions of steps. The brain has
to calculate the speed at which you walk and judge the distance of how far.
It has to coordinate balance and the task of placing one foot after the other.
It thinks about where the hands are during the journey and just how to coordinate
placement on the door knob and how much pressure should be applied and in which
direction. This breakdown could go on ad infinitum and all the while there is
the basic task of breathing, heart pumping, blinking the eyelids and so on.
If you were to write it all down it would be so utterly complex that we’d be
afraid to try as it would look like an incredibly daunting task.

There are certain functions or steps that are repeated in the task of walking
across the room. These could be the tasks of balance and basic body functions.
These instructions are continually used in the process of navigating to the
door and can be seen, for the purpose of this explanation, as simple as “don’t
fall down”.

That is the basic explanation of on-die cache. It holds certain instructions
that are used continually. This speeds up the computing process because those
instructions don’t have to be retrieved from the “slower” main memory.
These instructions are continually changing depending on the given task but
that is another part of the processor function that predicts what could be needed.
It is another complete subject in itself. For the most part instructions that
are called into the on-die cache are used on a fairly consistent basis. It is
better for processor function to keep them “handy.”

Front Side Bus speed is quite simple. One of the steps to
a faster system is to increase the speed at which the processor communicates
back and forth with the main system memory. I could overcomplicate the issue
with talk of bandwidth and latency but I won’t. The 400MHz FSB servers up a
theoretical interface peak bandwidth of 3200 MB/sec. Data may not be shoved
around quite that fast in reality but it does offer a substantial boost when
the right hardware is used.

A peek at the bridges

To upgrade or not to upgrade?

Is the Athlon XP 3200+ worth the investment? That’s a difficult question to
apply a good rule of thumb to. Upgrading is a choice the user makes based upon
what they want and how much they are willing to spend. If you are an AMD fan
and want the latest and greatest and money is no object then by all means upgrade.

There is also the choice to be made for the complete system buyer and that
is the choice between Intel and AMD. We openly admit that we are lacking in
the Intel processor department to provide the benchmark horse race comparison
between processors. Our piggy banks aren’t big enough to warrant the purchase
of a complete Intel system. This may be the same situation a lot of our readers
are in and therein lies our path to help you answer the upgrade question.

We took three processors and three combinations of ram to show you how the
Athlon XP 3200+ could theoretically affect your system.

Athlon XP 2100+

Which we benchmarked with two sticks of Corsair XMS memory which
was defaulted to 266 MHz speed settings for the test in DIMM 2 and 3 of the
ASUS A7N8X v2.0.

Athlon XP 2600+

The Athlon XP 2600+ 333 FSB was benchmarked with the same Corsair
XMS RAM defaulted to 333 MHz settings.

Athlon XP 3200+

The Athlon XP 3200+ was benchmarked with two 256 MB sticks of
Corsair TwinX memory at sync for 400 MHz.

The Athlon XP 3200+ was also benchmarked with a single 512 MB
stick of OEM (Nanya) memory in DIMM 3.

Many users may be in the position of already possessing memory or not wanting
to shell out top dollar for the performance memory. We were curious to see the
results of the 3200+ processor upgrade when “plain old PC2100” is
the main system memory.

Benchmarking

Disclosure: We openly admit that we are lacking the Intel top processors to
provide an Intel vs. AMD comparison. Therefore Short-Media benchmarked a 2100+
Thoroughbred, 2600+ 333 FSB Barton and the new Athlon XP 3200+ 400 FSB Barton
with 3 combinations of ram, DDR 266, DDR 333 and DDR 400 to exemplify how the
Athlon XP 3200+ could have an affect on your own particular system.

The ASUS A7N8X Deluxe v.2.00 test system.

• AMD 2100+ 266 FSB
  Processor
• AMD 3200+ 400 FSB
  Processor
• ASUS A7N8X V2.00 motherboard (Aggressive)
• ATI 9700 PRO Video Card
  Catalyst 3.2 drivers (Default settings w/VSYNC disabled)
• 2 x 256 MB Corsair TwinX PC3200 DDR RAM
• 1 x 512 MB Generic Nanya PC2100 RAM
• Sony 52x CD
• 60 GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard Drive
• Samsung 950p 19″ Monitor
• USB Keyboard and Logitech USB wireless Optical Mouse
• AMK SX1000 modded
  PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
• Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
• Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1

The ASUS A7N8X Deluxe v.1.04 test system.

• AMD 2600+ 333 FSB
  Processor
• ASUS A7N8X V1.04 motherboard (Optimal)
• ATI 9700 PRO Video Card
  Catalyst 3.2 drivers (Default settings w/VSYNC disabled)
• 2 x 256 MB Corsair XMS PC3200 DDR RAM
• Sony 52x CD
• 60 GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard Drive
• Samsung 950p 19″ Monitor
• USB Keyboard and Logitech USB wireless Optical Mouse
• AMK SX1000 modded
  PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
• Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
• Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1

Programs used

• 
  Sisoft Sandra 2003
• MadOnion
  3DMark 2001 SE
• Quake
  III Arena
• Commanche
  4
• GL
  Excess
• Kirbi
  City & Ultra benchmarks
• Code Creatures
• Serious Sam SE
• SpecviewPerf 7.0
• Unreal Tournament 2003 flyby benchmark
• Adobe After Effects 5.5
• SoftimageXSI 2.0.1

All tests were run at default video card settings with VSYNC disabled. APIC
mode was disabled, full screen logo show = disabled, speech post reporter =
disabled, CPU frequency set to FSB, cpu interface = aggressive, memory timings
= sync, graphics aperture = 256 MB, onboard AC97 modem = disabled, onboard LAN
3COM = disabled, parallel port mode = SPP, onboard game port = disabled, onboard
MIDI I/O = disabled. The ASUS A7N8X memory settings were set to OPTIMAL and
AGGRESSIVE as disclosed. Memory was kept at synchronous timing with the particular
processor tested. Individual performance will vary with any particular or specific
timings or tweaks enabled by you.

1024 MB page file moved to D: partition. Temporary Internet files moved to
K: partition at end of drive. OS installed to C: and programs installed to
E:. All programs were benchmarked at 1024×768@32 bits@75Hz with the exception
of SoftimageXSI which requires 1280×1024 resolution.

These may result in lesser or greater scores. Void where prohibited by law.
Don’t run with scissors. Chew each bite 32 times and always floss between meals.
Batteries not included. Wait one hour after a meal before swimming and use tonic
water to get stains out. Immerse a piece of tinfoil in a tray of warm water,
a tablespoon of water softener powder and a tablespoon of salt and dip silverware
in for instant cleaning.

3D Mark 2001 SE

3DMark 2001 SE shows the obvious lead taken by the 3200+ with
DDR400 memory in pairs. It also shows the benefit of the NFORCE2 dual memory
mode as the 2600+ with two 256 MB sticks of DDR333 memory does just as well
as the 3200+ with a single 512 MB stick of DDR266.

Codecreatures

Commanche 4

Again the advantages of dual memory mode on the NFORCE2 board
plus the extra memory bandwidth allow a 2600+ processor to keep pace with the
3200+ with a single stick. Memory in pairs works better than single sticks and
keeping the memory in sync with the Front Side Bus speed has great advantages.

GL Excess

Quake III high quality

Serious Sam

Unreal Tournament demo

Sisoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic

Sisoft Sandra CPU Multimedia

Sisoft Sandra Memory Benchmark

The DDR400 memory has an obvious advantage when paired with
a 400 MHz Front Side Bus of the 3200+.

Specviewperf 7.0

SpecviewPerf still grounds itself in the manipulation of 3D graphics
on a business application level rather than on a gaming performance level.

The following two tests are targeted mainly towards CPU performance and will
show if any “flaws” are in board design affecting the ability of the
CPU to crunch through the data. While in render mode the two test programs virtually
bypass ram and GPU.

Adobe After Effects 5.5

Adobe After Effects is a tool to produce motion
graphics and visual effects for film, video, multimedia and the web. It is primarily
a 2D application using imported graphics or digital footage or self generated
effects. A project was created that was a combination of many video footage
files, resizing and rasterizing effects, text animations and multiple layer
effects. This “average” combination was felt to best demonstrate advantages
and/or disadvantages that a real world user may experience rather than isolating
and benchmarking a particular effect.

There is no official benchmark for After Effects
but tasks can be timed to show specific results. Rendering, or the task of building
and compiling frames, is mainly CPU intensive and After Effects generally bypasses
the video card and relies solely on the processor for speed. The time taken
to render 900 frames basically shows how fast the processor is working on the
given task.

Softimage XSI can simply bring
any computer to its knees. It’s an incredibly powerful 3D animation program
that has the ability to become so complex that single processor systems have
been known to “think” for days when rendering an animation. Softimage works
on somewhat similar principle to After Effects. A faster and more powerful video
card will translate to a smoother interface where complex scenes can be manipulated
in real time. Note that Softimage does not have an interface to real-time preview
a finished frame as unlike After Effects. Users can manipulate objects in a
choice of views from wire frame mode to simulated real-time shading mode. In
order to look at a finished frame a user must render the frame to disk which
bypasses the GPU. A faster processor will result in the faster render. The amount
of RAM is not as great an issue as the user is working frame by frame and the
graphics card is doing the bulk of the work while working within the GUI.

This is a most basic overview and there are specialty
hardware components that can enhance the speed and interactivity of complex
3D scenes and programs. The designers working on the test system use Softimage
on a less complex level to provide enhancements and elements to commercials,
promos and station ID elements. Though their work is quite complex to some it
a far cry from that of special effects in major film productions.

Softimage performs its best on a dual processor
system and by far the recommendation for heavy 3D rendering is a dual processor
AMD system.

Conclusions

The Athlon XP 3200+ provides an obvious performance increase when paired with
DDR400 ram. It is only in nearly pure CPU tasks that memory speed does not play
a major role in performance. This is evident by the Softimage and After Effects
benchmarks. The Athlon XP 3200+ has a lot of processing power even when tied
down by PC2100 ram. It is interesting to note that the 4 minute and 22 second
render time in our Adobe After Effects project is only 32 seconds behind our
dual 2100+ MP test of the same project. In other cpu intensive applications
such as Softimage the 3200+ still has a lot of ground to make up to catch a
dual processing system.

The choice to upgrade depends on you. Above all the optimum configuration is
DDR400 ram and a motherboard that supports the higher bus speeds. The lure of
upgrading becomes stronger with the size of the gap between processor models;
what you have compared to what you want.

Some of you may inquire about overclocking and the 3200+. Overlclocking is
a skill and the results will drastically change from component to component.
In other words we choose to leave overclocking to the artists as they will do
a far better job of it than us but we may be tempted to see what the 3200+ can
do later with the Chaintech 7NJS or ABIT’s NF7-S.

Is the Athlon XP 3200+
worth the hard earned dollar? The 400 Front Side Bus speed and DDR400 memory
is a strong temptation. You might say 3.2 GB/second worth of temptation. The
gaming community will be drooling over the increase in frame rates. It may just
be worth it to invest in new ram, motherboard and processor to get the best
the 3200+ can offer. CPU intensive applications show less of a performance increase
over the 333 FSB processors and workstation users may want to carefully consider
their present hardware specifications before making any upgrade decisions. Putting
the Athlon XP with lesser ram is, in some cases, letting the air out of the
car tires.

Many have already pushed into the 400 MHz club through overclocking 333 FSB
processors but for the off the shelf buyers of new systems the decision is pretty
simple: if you can afford it…buy it. AMD processors are aggressively priced
today and this kind of performance is more affordable than it ever was.