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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1722
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57: The Fastest Single Core
by Derek Wilson on June 27, 2005 11:47 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Introduction
AMD is increasing the speed of their highest performing CPU today. The Athlon FX-57 is a 200MHz bump from the current FX-55, brining the clock speed of the highest performing single core CPU on the market to 2.8GHz. This modest 7.7% increase is not the be all, end all of speed bumps, but AMD is still in a much better position than Intel for extracting performance by tacking on an extra 200MHz. Intel's successive 200MHz increases on Prescott since it's existence have increased performance by smaller and smaller amounts 2.8 GHz to 3.8 GHz is a 35.7% increase in clock speed, which should be an overestimate of performance barring cache size increases. If we look at AMD's performance improvements from 1.8 GHz to 2.8 GHz, the upper bound on our performance increase is greater than 55%, plus any improvement for doubling cache size.Performance doesn't scale exactly linearly with clock speed in most cases, but the bottom line is that K8 started out faster than Prescott at a lower clock speeds. The result of the speed increases on current generation CPUs has been an increasing performance gap between Intel and AMD in favor of AMD. Even in the benchmarks where AMD's architecture traditionally loses to Intel, the gap is either decreased or the outcome has changed all together. There just isn't any way Intel's current architecture can compete in single threaded performance on the high end.
But as we have mentioned time and time again, steadily increasing clock speed over time is a losing proposition. The future of computing performance must increasingly rely on architectural enhancements. The first incarnation of this outlook has been the introduction dual core processors. This first generation shows some promising numbers in many areas, but a single thread's maximum performance won't increase with the addition of cores. The result of this fact is that those who demand extremely high performance will still demand high end single core processors.
While the focus of the industry is clearly elsewhere, both AMD and Intel still need to cater to the current state of the market. The FX-57 is very expensive and comes in at a whopping $1031 (in quantities of 1000 from AMD). While this is the fastest processor on the market, let's take a look at the benchmarks to see how much we get for the money.
The Test and Business/General Use Performance
The TestOur hardware configurations are similar to what we've used in previous comparisons.
AMD Athlon 64 Configuration
Socket-939 Athlon 64 CPUs
2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 EL Dual Channel DIMMs 2-2-2-10
ASUS nForce4 SLI Motherboard
ATI Radeon X800 XT PCI Express
Intel Pentium 4 Configuration
LGA-775 Intel Pentium 4 and Extreme Edition CPUs
2 x 512MB Crucial DDR-II 533 Dual Channel DIMMs 3-3-3-12
Intel 925XE and 945G Motherboards
ATI Radeon X800 XT PCI Express
Business/General Use Performance
Business Winstone 2004
Business Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:
. Microsoft Access 2002
. Microsoft Excel 2002
. Microsoft FrontPage 2002
. Microsoft Outlook 2002
. Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
. Microsoft Project 2002
. Microsoft Word 2002
. Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003
. WinZip 8.1
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Office Productivity SYSMark 2004
SYSMark's Office Productivity suite consists of three tests, the first of which is the Communication test. The Communication test consists of the following:
"The user receives an email in Outlook 2002 that contains a collection of documents in a zip file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while VirusScan 7.0 scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0. Finally, Internet Explorer is used to look at samples of the web pages and documents created during the scenario."
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The next test is Document Creation performance, which shows very little difference in drive performance between the contenders:
"The user edits the document using Word 2002. He transcribes an audio file into a document using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6. Once the document has all the necessary pieces in place, the user changes it into a portable format for easy and secure distribution using Acrobat 5.0.5. The user creates a marketing presentation in PowerPoint 2002 and adds elements to a slide show template."
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The final test in our Office Productivity suite is Data Analysis, which BAPCo describes as:
"The user opens a database using Access 2002 and runs some queries. A collection of documents are archived using WinZip 8.1. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet using Excel 2002 and are used to generate graphical charts."
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Microsoft Office XP SP-2
Here we see in that the purest of office application tests, performance doesn't vary all too much.
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Mozilla 1.4
Quite possibly the most frequently used application on any desktop is the one we pay the least amount of attention to when it comes to performance. While a bit older than the core that is now used in Firefox, performance in Mozilla is worth looking at as many users are switching from IE to a much more capable browser on the PC - Firefox.
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ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0
ACDSee is a popular image editing tool that is great for basic image editing options such as batch resizing, rotating, cropping and other such features that are too elementary to justify purchasing something as powerful as Photoshop for. There are no extremely complex filters here, just pure batch image processing.
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Ahead Software Nero Express 6.0.0.3
While it was a major issue in the past, these days buffer underrun errors while burning a CD or DVD are few and far between thanks to high performance CPUs as well as vastly improved optical drives. When you take the optical drive out of the equation, how do these CPU's stack up with burning performance?
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Winzip
Archiving performance ends up being fairly CPU bound as well as I/O limited.
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Multitasking Content Creation
MCC Winstone 2004Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:
. Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0.1
. Adobe® Premiere® 6.50
. Macromedia® Director MX 9.0
. Macromedia® Dreamweaver MX 6.1
. Microsoft® Windows MediaTM Encoder 9 Version 9.00.00.2980
. NewTek's LightWave® 3D 7.5b
. SteinbergTM WaveLabTM 4.0f
As you can see above, Lightwave is part of the MCC Winstone 2004 benchmark suite. As an individual application, Lightwave does manage to get a healthy performance benefit with multithreaded rendering enabled, especially when paired with Hyperthreading enabled CPUs like the Pentium 4s here today. All chips were tested with Lightwave set to spawn 4 threads.
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ICC SYSMark 2004
The first category that we will deal with is 3D Content Creation. The tests that make up this benchmark are described below:
"The user renders a 3D model to a bitmap using 3ds max 5.1, while preparing web pages in Dreamweaver MX. Then the user renders a 3D animation in a vector graphics format."
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Next, we have 2D Content Creation performance:
"The user uses Premiere 6.5 to create a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into Photoshop 7.01, modifies it and saves the results. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using After Effects 5.5."
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The Internet Content Creation suite is rounded up with a Web Publishing performance test:
"The user extracts content from an archive using WinZip 8.1. Meanwhile, he uses Flash MX to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed using Windows Media Encoder 9 series in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches in Dreamweaver MX and the system is scanned by VirusScan 7.0."
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Mozilla + Media Encoder
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Video Creation/Photo Editing
Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1
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Adobe Premier 6.5
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Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator 1.5
While Premier is a wonderful professional application, consumers will prefer something a little easier to use. Enter: Roxio's VideoWave Movie Creator, a fairly full-featured, yet consumer level video editing package.
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Audio/Video Encoding
MusicMatch Jukebox 7.10
Windows Media Encoder 9
To finish up our look at Video Encoding performance, we have Windows Media Encoder 9 from the WorldBench suit.
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Gaming Performance
Doom 3 Performance
Unreal Tournament 2004 Performance
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Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Performance
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3D Rendering
3dsmax 5.1WorldBench includes two 3dsmax benchmarks using version 5.1 of the popular 3D rendering and animation package: a DirectX and an OpenGL benchmark.
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3dsmax 6
For the next 3dsmax test, we used version 6 of the program and ran the SPECapc rendering tests to truly stress these CPUs. Since there's not much new to report here, we're only going to report the Rendering Composite score.
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Workstation Applications
SPECviewperf 8SPECviewperf is a collection of application traces taken from some of the most popular professional applications, and compiled together in a single set of benchmarks used to estimate performance in the various applications in which the benchmark is used to model. With version 8, SPEC has significantly improved the quality of the benchmark, making it even more of a real world indicator of performance.
We have included SPEC's official description of each one of the 8 tests in the suite.
3dsmax Viewset (3dsmax-03)
"The 3dsmax-03 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by 3ds max 3.1. To insure a common comparison point, the OpenGL plug-in driver from Discreet was used during tracing.
The models for this viewset came from the SPECapc 3ds max 3.1 benchmark. Each model was measured with two different lighting models to reflect a range of potential 3ds max users. The high-complexity model uses five to seven positional lights as defined by the SPECapc benchmark and reflects how a high-end user would work with 3ds max. The medium-complexity lighting models uses two positional lights, a more common lighting environment.
The viewset is based on a trace of the running application and includes all the state changes found during normal 3ds max operation. Immediate-mode OpenGL calls are used to transfer data to the graphics subsystem."
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CATIA Viewset (catia-01)
"The catia-01 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the CATIATM V5R12 application from Dassault Systems.
Three models are measured using various modes in CATIA. Phil Harris of LionHeart Solutions, developer of CATBench2003, supplied SPEC/GPC with the models used to measure the CATIA application. The models are courtesy of CATBench2003 and CATIA Community.
The car model contains more than two million points. SPECviewperf replicates the geometry represented by the smaller engine block and submarine models to increase complexity and decrease frame rates. After replication, these models contain 1.2 million vertices (engine block) and 1.8 million vertices (submarine).
State changes as made by the application are included throughout the rendering of the model, including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application. The state changes put considerably more stress on graphics subsystems than the simple geometry dumps found in older SPECviewperf viewsets.
Mirroring the application, draw arrays are used for some tests and immediate mode used for others."
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Lightscape Viewset (light-07)
"The light-07 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Lightscape Visualization System from Discreet Logic. Lightscape combines proprietary radiosity algorithms with a physically based lighting interface.
The most significant feature of Lightscape is its ability to accurately simulate global illumination effects by precalculating the diffuse energy distribution in an environment and storing the lighting distribution as part of the 3D model. The resulting lighting "mesh" can then be rapidly displayed."
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Maya Viewset (maya-01)
"The maya-01 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Maya V5 application from Alias.
The models used in the tests were contributed by artists at NVIDIA. Various modes in the Maya application are measured.
State changes as made by the application are included throughout the rendering of the model, including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application. The state changes put considerably more stress on graphics subsystems than the simple geometry dumps found in older viewsets.
As in the Maya V5 application, array element is used to transfer data through the OpenGL API."
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Pro/ENGINEER (proe-03)
"The proe-03 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Pro/ENGINEER 2001TM application from PTC.
Two models and three rendering modes are measured during the test. PTC contributed the models to SPEC for use in measurement of the Pro/ENGINEER application. The first of the models, the PTC World Car, represents a large-model workload composed of 3.9 to 5.9 million vertices. This model is measured in shaded, hidden-line removal, and wireframe modes. The wireframe workloads are measured both in normal and antialiased mode. The second model is a copier. It is a medium-sized model made up of 485,000 to 1.6 million vertices. Shaded and hidden-line-removal modes were measured for this model.
This viewset includes state changes as made by the application throughout the rendering of the model, including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes. The PTC World Car shaded frames include more than 100MB of state and vertex information per frame. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application. The state changes put considerably more stress on graphics subsystems than the simple geometry dumps found in older viewsets.
Mirroring the application, draw arrays are used for the shaded tests and immediate mode is used for the wireframe. The gradient background used by the Pro/E application is also included to better model the application workload."

SolidWorks Viewset (sw-01)
"The sw-01 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Solidworks 2004 application from Dassault Systemes.
The model and workloads used were contributed by Solidworks as part of the SPECapc for SolidWorks 2004 benchmark.
State changes as made by the application are included throughout the rendering of the model, including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application. The state changes put considerably more stress on graphics subsystems than the simple geometry dumps found in older viewsets.
Mirroring the application, draw arrays are used for some tests and immediate mode used for others."
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Unigraphics (ugs-04)
"The ugs-04 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by Unigraphics V17.
The engine model used was taken from the SPECapc for Unigraphics V17 application benchmark. Three rendering modes are measured -- shaded, shaded with transparency, and wireframe. The wireframe workloads are measured both in normal and anti-alised mode. All tests are repeated twice, rotating once in the center of the screen and then moving about the frame to measure clipping performance.
The viewset is based on a trace of the running application and includes all the state changes found during normal Unigraphics operation. As with the application, OpenGL display lists are used to transfer data to the graphics subsystem. Thousands of display lists of varying sizes go into generating each frame of the model.
To increase model size and complexity, SPECviewperf 8.0 replicates the model two times more than the previous ugs-03 test."
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Final Words
Clearly the FX-57 is the fastest single core processor money can buy right now. But is it worth it?The price is exorbitant, the speed increase over previous FX processors is not extreme, and the industry is focused firmly on multiple core architectures. We are no longer at point in time where this launch is extremely important. The battles have been fought and AMD already won the fight for single threaded performance.
For end users who need a high performing single core, the 4000+ is quite capable and affords a savings of more than $550. For those who have the money to burn, the X2 4800+ costs just over $1000 as well and will provide smoother multitasking and higher performance in applications that only modestly benefit from multithreading.
The FX-57 isn't as overclockable as previous parts (based on our experience with one sample). Our FX-53 would easily run at 2.6GHz, and the FX-55 could run stable at 2.8GHz if we took extra care to keep it cool. Our FX-57 didn't even pretend to make it through our stability test at 3GHz.
There may be some corporation or individual who absolutely must have single core performance at all costs. In that situation, the FX-57 is the fastest option and the best fit. Of course, that demographic doesn't even show up on the radar. The real answer to our question is that the FX-57 is not worth the price. With options almost as fast at just about half the price or hardware that has the potential for more speed and a smoother experience priced the same, the choice for the desktop end user is clearly not the FX-57.