Disappointing performance
 

I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family member. I was
disappointed at the CPU and memory performance compared to my own Pentium 4
2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+ would be at
least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for the sake
of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the hard
disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive, presumably because of
SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium 4 system is connected to a
Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both systems are
running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS settings and everything
appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20 just a
crappy motherboard?

Goober wrote in message
...
I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family member. I
was
disappointed at the CPU and memory performance compared to my own Pentium
4
2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+ would be
at
least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for the
sake
of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the hard
disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive, presumably because of
SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium 4 system is connected to a
Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both systems
are
running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS settings and everything
appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20 just a
crappy motherboard?


Now load both systems with the new Win 64 bit OS. Which is fastest now? G

I understand your frustration. I have a P4 2.8 MHz system and an AMD64 3200+
system. The P4 is faster in some areas and the AMD64 is faster in others.
But we both know which will run the new 64-bit OS and which won't. Look at
the bright side of the situation.

Ed Cregger

64 bit wow I got to get that.

"Ed Cregger" wrote in message
...

Goober wrote in message
...
I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family member. I
was
disappointed at the CPU and memory performance compared to my own Pentium
4
2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+ would be
at
least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for the
sake
of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the hard
disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive, presumably because
of
SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium 4 system is connected to a
Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both systems
are
running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS settings and everything
appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20 just a
crappy motherboard?


Now load both systems with the new Win 64 bit OS. Which is fastest now?
G

I understand your frustration. I have a P4 2.8 MHz system and an AMD64
3200+
system. The P4 is faster in some areas and the AMD64 is faster in others.
But we both know which will run the new 64-bit OS and which won't. Look at
the bright side of the situation.

Ed Cregger

Won`t DDR400 run at 200 ?. ..J

"Goober" wrote in message
...
I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family member. I
was disappointed at the CPU and memory performance compared to my own
Pentium 4 2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+
would be at least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for the
sake of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the hard
disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive, presumably because of
SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium 4 system is connected to a
Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both systems
are running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS settings and
everything appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20 just a
crappy motherboard?

Ed Cregger wrote:
Goober wrote in message
...
I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family
member. I was disappointed at the CPU and memory performance
compared to my own Pentium 4
2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+
would be at least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for
the sake of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the
hard disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive, presumably
because of SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium 4 system is
connected to a Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both
systems are running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS
settings and everything appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20
just a crappy motherboard?


Now load both systems with the new Win 64 bit OS. Which is fastest
now? G

I understand your frustration. I have a P4 2.8 MHz system and an
AMD64 3200+ system. The P4 is faster in some areas and the AMD64 is
faster in others. But we both know which will run the new 64-bit OS
and which won't. Look at the bright side of the situation.

Ed Cregger


exactly how is a 64 bit OS going to help when both chips are 32 bit???? The
OP said Athlon XP3000+

ed slaps forehead now DOH!
--

sbb78247

Speak the truth and leave shortly there after.

"Goober" wrote:

I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family
member. I was disappointed at the CPU and memory performance
compared to my own Pentium 4 2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I
thought that the Athlon XP 3000+ would be at least a little
faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just
for the sake of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but
the hard disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive,
presumably because of SATA support. (The hard disk in the
Pentium 4 system is connected to a Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20,

You should IMO list all of the hardware together, like this.

ABIT VA-20
Athlon XP 3000+
1GB PC3200 DDR400
WD 80-GB SATA

If your CPU uses a 166-MHz system bus, then you should set the
memory input/output speed at the same 166 MHz frequency (assuming
it runs fast as the CPU, which it does).

Try another testing program?

Good luck.




and both systems are
running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS settings and
everything appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20
just a crappy motherboard?

"sbb78247" wrote in message
...
Ed Cregger wrote:
Goober wrote in message
...
I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family
member. I was disappointed at the CPU and memory performance
compared to my own Pentium 4
2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+
would be at least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for
the sake of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the
hard disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive, presumably
because of SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium 4 system is
connected to a Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both
systems are running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS
settings and everything appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20
just a crappy motherboard?


Now load both systems with the new Win 64 bit OS. Which is fastest
now? G

I understand your frustration. I have a P4 2.8 MHz system and an
AMD64 3200+ system. The P4 is faster in some areas and the AMD64 is
faster in others. But we both know which will run the new 64-bit OS
and which won't. Look at the bright side of the situation.

Ed Cregger


exactly how is a 64 bit OS going to help when both chips are 32 bit????
The
OP said Athlon XP3000+

ed slaps forehead now DOH!


Yep. Slapped the forehead...

Ed Cregger

On Thu, 19 May 2005 00:42:47 -0400, "Goober"
wrote:

I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family member. I was
disappointed at the CPU and memory performance compared to my own Pentium 4
2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+ would be at
least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for the sake
of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the hard
disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive, presumably because of
SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium 4 system is connected to a
Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both systems are
running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS settings and everything
appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20 just a
crappy motherboard?



PCMark is shamelessly flattering for P4s.

Amazingly, many popular benchmarks don't correlate well to reality.
There are various reasons for this. Each new generation of PCMark and
SYSMark for instance, is formulated to primarily focus on showing off
the improvements of the latest generation of (market leader) Intel
CPU. Whether this be increased FSB, SSE2, hyperthreading, or the
Prescotts new flavor of branch prediction.
They do a really rotten job comparing AMD to Intel Performance on real
world applications.

Try clocking your typical apps instead. Or 'Veritest Winstone
benchmarks'.
Another thing is that the A-XP architecture doesn't support SSE2
extensions. So software that employ that heavily, common for video
apps, will run better on the P4.

Ed Cregger wrote:
"sbb78247" wrote in message
...
Ed Cregger wrote:
Goober wrote in message
...
I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family
member. I was disappointed at the CPU and memory performance
compared to my own Pentium 4
2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+
would be at least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for
the sake of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the
hard disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive,
presumably because of SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium
4 system is connected to a Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both
systems are running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS
settings and everything appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20
just a crappy motherboard?


Now load both systems with the new Win 64 bit OS. Which is fastest
now? G

I understand your frustration. I have a P4 2.8 MHz system and an
AMD64 3200+ system. The P4 is faster in some areas and the AMD64 is
faster in others. But we both know which will run the new 64-bit OS
and which won't. Look at the bright side of the situation.

Ed Cregger


exactly how is a 64 bit OS going to help when both chips are 32
bit???? The
OP said Athlon XP3000+

ed slaps forehead now DOH!


Yep. Slapped the forehead...

Ed Cregger

at least that was all!

should have gotten the athlon 64 3000 for socket 939 instead. I think it's
in the same price range and it's faster than the 32bit one

"Goober" wrote in message
...
I've just put together an Athlon XP 3000+ system for a family member. I
was disappointed at the CPU and memory performance compared to my own
Pentium 4 2.6-GHz (400-Mhz FSB) system. I thought that the Athlon XP 3000+
would be at least a little faster.

I ran several benchmarks, but here are my PCMark04 scores just for the
sake of comparison:

P4 2.4 GHz (100-MHz system bus):
------------------------
CPU: 3408
Memory: 2553 (1 GB of PC2100 DDR266)
HDD: 1640 (WD 80-GB IDE)


Athlon XP 3000+ (166-MHz system bus):
------------------------------
CPU: 2825
Memory: 1620 (1 GB PC3200 DDR400)
HDD: 4690 (WD 80-GB SATA)


Both systems have an 80-GB Western Digital hard disk drive, but the hard
disk performance of the Athlon system is impressive, presumably because of
SATA support. (The hard disk in the Pentium 4 system is connected to a
Promise Ultra133 TX2 card.)

The motherboard in the Athlon system is an ABIT VA-20, and both systems
are running Win XP SP2. I've triple-checked the BIOS settings and
everything appears to be set correctly.

Is this performance typical for an Athlon XP 3000+? Is the VA-20 just a
crappy motherboard?