CPU speed AMD 2800 vs 300 ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike

I think I am a newbie in these tech questions because I really do not understand
the differences in CPU speed between the AMD Athlon XP 2800 and the 3000. Both
have a FSB of 333MHz and the difference is the core, Barton or Thoroughbred.

Athlon XP 3000+ 2.167 GHz (333) (Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+ 2.083 GHz (333) (Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+ 2.25 GHz (333)
Athlon XP 2700+ 2.167 GHz (333)

I see, for example, here
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_1582091__2 that the
2800 Thor. is much faster than the 3000 Barton. What should anyone want to buy
the 3000+? Is there something I miss here? I read that the larger L2 cache will
make the difference but what's it worth? Worth the $25?

I'm asking because I want to upgrade my 2000+ to the fastest AMD CPU with a FSB
of 333. Mostly for gaming, Photoshop and office work. What should I choose?

Thanks in advance for any advice!
Mike (from the Netherlands)
 
Mike said:
I think I am a newbie in these tech questions because I really do not
understand the differences in CPU speed between the AMD Athlon XP 2800 and
the 3000. Both have a FSB of 333MHz and the difference is the core, Barton
or Thoroughbred.

Athlon XP 3000+ 2.167 GHz (333) (Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+ 2.083 GHz (333) (Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+ 2.25 GHz (333)
Athlon XP 2700+ 2.167 GHz (333)

I see, for example, here
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_1582091__2 that
the 2800 Thor. is much faster than the 3000 Barton. What should anyone
want to buy the 3000+? Is there something I miss here? I read that the
larger L2 cache will make the difference but what's it worth? Worth the
$25?

I'm asking because I want to upgrade my 2000+ to the fastest AMD CPU with
a FSB of 333. Mostly for gaming, Photoshop and office work. What should I
choose?

Thanks in advance for any advice!
Mike (from the Netherlands)
Click to expand...

Hmm, by browsing through the article, I can't find a benchmark which shows
the Barton to be slower. I hope you didn't make a mistake in secondscount
of for example the MPEG4 encoding, where less is better.

Anyway, there is absolutely no difference in core between the Barton and
Thoroughbred B except for the cache (and cash :) ) I don't think you'll
notice much of a difference between the TB-B and Barton.

Then again, in my opinion, an upgrade from a 2000+ to a 3000+ is not
justified. Wouldn't it be better to wait for the Athlon 64 socket 939 to
get available and affordable? You could of course buy the 2800+ or 3000+ as
an in-between sollution, but if it means buying new memory and/or a new
mainboard as well, I wouldn't recommend it, because the performance gain
won't be that great.

And if you do upgrade to a 3000+ with an FSB of 333, don't waste money on
DDR400 memory, keeping is sychronous with the FSB is a much better
configuration. If you get a 3200+ with an FSB of 400, DDR 400 memory is
preferable.
 
I think I am a newbie in these tech questions because I really do not understand
the differences in CPU speed between the AMD Athlon XP 2800 and the 3000. Both
have a FSB of 333MHz and the difference is the core, Barton or Thoroughbred.

Athlon XP 3000+ 2.167 GHz (333) (Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+ 2.083 GHz (333) (Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+ 2.25 GHz (333)
Athlon XP 2700+ 2.167 GHz (333)

I see, for example, here
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_1582091__2 that the
2800 Thor. is much faster than the 3000 Barton. What should anyone want to buy
the 3000+? Is there something I miss here? I read that the larger L2 cache will
make the difference but what's it worth? Worth the $25?

I'm asking because I want to upgrade my 2000+ to the fastest AMD CPU with a FSB
of 333. Mostly for gaming, Photoshop and office work. What should I choose?

Thanks in advance for any advice!
Mike (from the Netherlands)
Click to expand...

Some applications benefit more from larger L2 cache, others from higher
MHz. Barton is faster per MHz but it's arguable whether it's performance
is worth it's XP(nnnn) rating. Price is a personal preference... towards
the higher-end CPUs of any socket type the price disproportionately rises,
at least until they become quite aged technology.

Barton is easier to cool due to lower MHz (more stability margin) and
larger core surface to heatsink contact area. Given that Barton starts
out with lower MHz it's also potentially easier to overclock a modest
amount but the newer Bartons are multiplier locked except for the Mobile
chips, which again are slightly more expensive. Then again, FSB
overclocking has greater benefit that multiplier o'c, but certainly
overclocking is a personal choice that you may not want to make.

I wouldn't pay over 10% more for a Barton XP3000 over a T'Bred XP2800
unless you want to overclock the Barton, then maybe up to 20%... The $25
difference you mention would have to be considered relative to cost of
CPUs in your area.
 
[ snip my questons ]
Hmm, by browsing through the article, I can't find a benchmark which shows
the Barton to be slower. I hope you didn't make a mistake in secondscount
of for example the MPEG4 encoding, where less is better.
Click to expand...

No, I was just wondering.
And if you do upgrade to a 3000+ with an FSB of 333, don't waste money on
DDR400 memory, keeping is sychronous with the FSB is a much better
configuration. If you get a 3200+ with an FSB of 400, DDR 400 memory is
preferable.
Click to expand...

My mobo has a FSB of 266 officially (with 2000+ FSB266) but I will try to
manually increase the FSB to 333 with the KT333 schipset. My memory is allready
at 333, so that's why I expect a little boost.

Thanks for your insights and thoughts.

Mike
 
I think I am a newbie in these tech questions because I really do not
understand
Some applications benefit more from larger L2 cache, others from higher
MHz. Barton is faster per MHz but it's arguable whether it's performance
is worth it's XP(nnnn) rating. Price is a personal preference... towards
the higher-end CPUs of any socket type the price disproportionately rises,
at least until they become quite aged technology.

Barton is easier to cool due to lower MHz (more stability margin) and
larger core surface to heatsink contact area. Given that Barton starts
out with lower MHz it's also potentially easier to overclock a modest
amount but the newer Bartons are multiplier locked except for the Mobile
chips, which again are slightly more expensive. Then again, FSB
overclocking has greater benefit that multiplier o'c, but certainly
overclocking is a personal choice that you may not want to make.

I wouldn't pay over 10% more for a Barton XP3000 over a T'Bred XP2800
unless you want to overclock the Barton, then maybe up to 20%... The $25
difference you mention would have to be considered relative to cost of
CPUs in your area.
Click to expand...

Considering all this, I think I'll take the 2800 Barton because it's only $5
more than the Thoroughbred version and $30 less than the 3000+. O/C I'm too lazy
for :)

Thansk you for your answers.

Mike
 
Mike said:
My mobo has a FSB of 266 officially (with 2000+ FSB266) but I will try to
manually increase the FSB to 333 with the KT333 schipset. My memory is
allready at 333, so that's why I expect a little boost.
Click to expand...

Increasing the FSB to 333 is only possible if the mainboard supports proper
PCI and AGP deviding for that speed. On 266DDR, the PCI devider is 4,
because 133/4 in computerworld is 33, which is the speed of a PCI bus. When
running at 333DDR, you need a 1/5th divider for PCI. And of course, the
same goes for the dividers of the AGP-bus. And BTW, it's questionable if
the KT333 will run at such an increase in host-clock.

So, be careful when increasing the host-clock by so much.
 
Set the memory back to synchronous setting, 266, and leave it there. If
your memory is high enough spec to do 333 you'd have greater performance
tweaking the timings... but of course run http://www.memtest86.com for
several hours or more after any memory changes, before running the OS.
Increasing the FSB to 333 is only possible if the mainboard supports proper
PCI and AGP deviding for that speed. On 266DDR, the PCI devider is 4,
because 133/4 in computerworld is 33, which is the speed of a PCI bus. When
running at 333DDR, you need a 1/5th divider for PCI. And of course, the
same goes for the dividers of the AGP-bus. And BTW, it's questionable if
the KT333 will run at such an increase in host-clock.

So, be careful when increasing the host-clock by so much.
Click to expand...

KT333 will run stable up to and a little beyond 166MHz FSB and can (will
unless the manufacturer of the mainboard doesn't provide the feature) use
1/5 PCI divider, there's no question about that. IIRC the AGP divider
might be at 1/2 though, 83MHz, which is within the capabilities of
practically every video card out there but I don't know for sure about the
least common chipsets, mainly Matrox, nVidia and ATI are known to work
fine @ 83MHz for the past several years.

On the other hand, using KT333's "+33" async memory bus mode, I don't
expect that to work with 166MHz FSB as 200MHz memory bus (perhaps it's
possible with the right memory but I'm uncertain of it), but any
manufacturer "should" have the bios set to revert back to sync memory bus
above roughly 160MHz FSB (or slightly lower).

So the bottom line is that KT333 is more likely to be stable at 166MHz
than 150MHz due to being over the hump to use the 1/5 PCI divider, but
again that's only the chipset and any "decent" board based around it, the
manufacturer of any particular board could even eliminate manual bus
settings altogether.
 
My mobo has a FSB of 266 officially (with 2000+ FSB266) but I will try to
Set the memory back to synchronous setting, 266, and leave it there. If
your memory is high enough spec to do 333 you'd have greater performance
tweaking the timings... but of course run http://www.memtest86.com for
several hours or more after any memory changes, before running the OS.
Click to expand...

True. I just tried and it worked fine! I mean, "Top Performance" never worked
but then again I never tried to lower back some settings to gain performance...
Now my memory is at 266 MHz (instead of 333), CAS latency is 2 (instead of 2.5),
and memory timing is 1T. Not bad, he? :)
KT333 will run stable up to and a little beyond 166MHz FSB and can (will
unless the manufacturer of the mainboard doesn't provide the feature) use
1/5 PCI divider, there's no question about that. IIRC the AGP divider
might be at 1/2 though, 83MHz, which is within the capabilities of
practically every video card out there but I don't know for sure about the
least common chipsets, mainly Matrox, nVidia and ATI are known to work
fine @ 83MHz for the past several years.
Click to expand...

By now, I heard so much stories that I've decided to try and find out. Thanks
for the help.

Mike
 
Back
Top