Windows XP 64-Bit Preview: First Look at Athlon 64 Performance
by Wesley Fink on February 7, 2004 12:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Windows XP 64-Bit Preview: Performance Test Configuration
|
Athlon64 FX51 Performance
Test Configuration |
|
|
Processor(s): |
AMD Athlon64 FX51 |
|
Operating
Systems: |
Windows XP 64-Bit Preview Edition Windows XP Professional, SP1 |
|
RAM: |
2 x 512MB Mushkin ECC Registered High Performance 2:3:2 #991125 |
|
Hard
Drive(s): |
Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) |
|
Video
AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: |
VIA Hyperion BETA for XP64 (2/04/04) VIA Hyperion 4.51 (12/02/03) |
|
Video
Card(s): |
Albatron FX5950 Ultra 256MB |
|
Video
Drivers: |
nVidia WHQL 52.14 for Win XP64 nVidia WHQL 52.16 for XP |
|
Motherboards: |
Asus
SK8V (VIA K8T800) |
Since we
awarded Editor's
Choice to the Asus SK8V for top Socket 940 board, we decided to run all
benchmarks with the SK8V with Dual-Channel Registered Memory and the top-line
Athlon 64 FX51. The 3400+ runs at the
same real speed as the FX51, but uses Single-Channel unbuffered memory. We plan to take a closer look comparing the performance of the
3400+ and FX51 on XP64 in a future article.
Please forgive us for not including it here - but we wanted to get some
benchmarks to you as soon as possible.
Consider this a preview - with more to come.
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Jeff7181 - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
Very nice. This is reminding me of the Windows 3.1 > Windows 95 switch.PrinceGaz - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
Just to add to what I said, it would be beneficial if AnandTech ran all CPU article game tests at 640x480 to reduce the impact of the graphics-card as past reviews have shown that some of them are gfx-card bound.PrinceGaz - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
Its clear from those results that uaing an Athlon 64 with a 64-bit O/S will certainly give considerable performance improvements with many applications and perform at least as well in everything else.Equally clear is that the poor gaming results in this test are caused by immature/unoptimised AGP GART chipset and/or graphics-card drivers as all the other tests which weren't dependent on what was sent to the graphics-card showed the A64 doing at least as well as in 32-bit mode and usually somewhat better. Changing from 32-bit to 64-bit mode obviously isn't going to hamper the transfer of data down the AGP/PCI-Express bus (quite the opposite with suitable drivers) so I'd expect games to show similar performance gains to other apps once the drivers are mature.
INTC - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
Here is a description of the different modes of AMD64 operations:http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/amd_a64fx51/7.shtm...
It looks like WOW is okay but until applications are recompiled for full 64-bit the advantages are absent and there may even be some penalty for "Compatibility" mode as seen in the gaming scores.
It will be interesting to see what Intel will have at IDF in a few weeks.
Pumpkinierre - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
This OS has been written for the a64 which from memory has 3 modes of operation: full64bit, 32bit emulation and something in between. You mention DX-32bit(post #13) so can this OS run in 32bit mode. If so, you could run the games benchmarks using 32bit drivers and Win64. If scores were still the same then the OS would be to blame not the drivers.Still, good to see movement on the 64bit front. I suspect that Intel's recent announcements have something to do with this. Perhaps Win64 is not coded for A64 alone. Nevertheless, it cant but help a64 sales.
tolgae - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
Well, nobody seems to mention the fact that many of these apps (games especially) are running under WOW64. It is normal that such losses are happening. The CPU can run 32-bit natively very well, but now applications are going through this extra layer (being "converted" on the fly, in a sense) so that they can run on 64-bit OS. As with everything else about the Windows XP 64-bit, I am sure this will be optimized until the product ships (even after that).mattsaccount - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
The important thing to keep in mind is that this is not the final release of Windows 64 bit, unlike Prescott :) Nobody would use this BETA OS in a production environment.The way I interpret these results is like so. The improvements are real and will still be present when Windows 64 final (whatever it's called) is shipped. The applications with poor performance (i.e. games) will probably improve by the time the OS ships and we should therefore withhold judgement.
raskren - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
Wow what a hit in the gaming department! I expected to a see a modest gain in everything, but the tiny boost in 64bit apps and the huge loss in games makes the Prescott look a lot better.Wesley Fink - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
Splinter Cell has been added to the Game Benchmark comparison.XP64 uses DirectX 64 and a Direct X 32-bit version. We were told there may be a problem with enabling DirectX 64 in this Preview Edition. We did run DXDiag for 64-bits and checked to make sure DX64 was enabled. We then reran several game benchmarks and got essentially the same results as those posted in this review.
We will be on the lookout for updated graphics drivers and will report what we find.
klah - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link
The Nvidia driver is still very slow and buggy. OpenGL actually runs faster in software mode with this driver.http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000257