3DMark2001SE, X², Comanche 4
Non-3D tests went the way of both S939 processors, with Model 3800+ just a few percent behind the FX-53. Let's now see if gaming fares as well.
You bet.. AMD's Athlon 64 FX-53 S939 sets a new Radeon 9800 XT HEXUS default benchmark record with 22,183 marks. A breakdown of the FX-53's results can be found here and Model 3800's here. The main difference between the two scores can be attributed to the Lobby level. 1MB L2 cache adds that much more oomph, but 512kb S939 is enough to displace a 1MB L2 S940 again.
Comanche 4 is sensitive to changes in processor cache. Have a look at the differences between a regular Pentium 4 3.4GHz Northwood and the Extreme Edition. The difference isn't so pronounced between the FX-53 and Model 3800+, certainly not a large enough gap for one to get unduly worried about. That seems to be the continuing theme through our benchmarks.
It's all very tight in X² - The Threat. S940's performance is slightly hampered by NVIDIA's chipset, which has historically been slower than VIA's in this low-resolution test.
