Thoughts and musings
This review set out with a mind to evaluating AMD's new Athlon 64 3200+ processor, VIA's K8T800 and NVIDIA's nForce3 150 motherboards, with the latter two represented by retail examples from well-known motherboard manufacturers EPoX and Shuttle respectively. The Athlon 64 3200+ is derived from the technology that goes into manufacturing the Athlon 64 FX-51 which, in turn, is derived from the workstation / server Opteron CPUs. The FX-51 had already left a tremendous impact on our processor hierarchy by beating the Pentium 4 3.2GHz Northwood in most benchmarks. The Athlon 64 3200+ was expected to perform at a lower level due to a slower clock speed and used a single-channel memory controller. What's surprised us was just how close it came to matching the FX-51's benchmarks when overclocked to 2.2GHz. In some cases it managed to plunder first place in a star-studded lineup. Its super-low memory latency and large L2 cache gave it the necessary weapons to beat out the XP3200+, a CPU that runs at a 10% faster clock rate, in the majority of our benchmarks. It certainly boasts an impressive IPC. What's more, pricing puts it at a shade above the incumbent XP3200's, making the present Barton effectively redundant if you're looking for a system from scratch. The Athlon 64 3200+ may only boast a single-channel memory controller, but it makes full and immediate use of it. Online pricing puts it at around £350. That's Pentium 4 3.0GHz retail money.
A moment of startling lucidity now. Every processor needs an accompanying chipset. However, with AMD taking memory controller consideration into its own hands and providing a super-fast HyperTransport bus to components, Socket-754 chipset designers needn't burn the midnight oil in the hope of engineering an efficient on-chipset controller. If you take away one of the leading performance differentiators between chipsets you should end up with similar performance from all and sundry. Compare this to the Socket-A situation where each chipset designer has its own controllers, controllers that largely determined performance.
It's of no real surprise, then, to learn that VIA's K8T800 and NVIDIA's nForce3 150 are closely matched in almost every benchmark. NVIDIA's single-chip solution does appear to be a barebones approach to chipset design, especially after the jam-packed nForce2 MCP. Shuttle has done a decent job with the 150, mostly by adding a number of discrete controllers to make up for the MCP3's inadequacies. EPoX, on the other hand, sprinkles a few extra features on top of an already powerful VT8327 South Bridge. The EPox board was also preferred from an overclocker's point of view. It managed a higher CPU FSB and DRAM speed than the competing Shuttle AN50R, which began to falter at 220MHz.
It's far too early to say which chipset complements the Athlon 64 better. What's clear is that AMD has risen to a new performance plane with the Athlon 64. Multiplier unlocking (AMD permitting) and the ability to toggle DRAM timings are two of the features we're looking for in subsequent BIOS revisions. All in all, we're pleasantly surprised by the Athlon 64's performance, and we have been receptive to VIA's K8T800 design. The nForce3 150, though, seems to be a little barren by comparison. That's not an observation that's normally directed at NVIDIA. Our initial examination of the Athlon 64 reveals great promise. EPoX and Shuttle have both done well to market boards so quickly. We'll reserve our judgment of the K8T800 and nForce3 150 until a few more examples have passed through the labs. EPoX and VIA has the upper hand so far, though. Effortlessly smooth at 2.3GHz / DDR460.
- AMD ATHLON 64 3200+
- EPoX 8HDA3+ / VIA K8T800
- Shuttle AN50R / nForce3 150
