AMD's Athlon XP 3000+ steps up to bat

AMD had big plans to put the hammer to Intel this year. Instead, the company is only chipping away at its archrival's growing lead. The new AMD Athlon XP 3000+ processor has nearly the identical clock speed as the existing Athlon XP 2700+. The difference? The 3000+ is based on a new design, code-named Barton, that sports double the external cache (from 256K to 512K). But while this improvement translates to increased performance, Barton is still a far cry from the 64-bit Athlon desktop chip--code-named Clawhammer--that we've been waiting for.

In the meantime, our US testing team evaluated two desktops based on the Athlon XP 3000+: the iBuyPower Phantom XP and the Polywell Poly 880NF2-3000. Neither of these systems are available in Australia, but the performance results they display do show off the potential of the new AMD chip. We've included specifications and benchmarks at the end of the review, as they're both built from commodity components that we're likely to see in systems once Athlon XP 3000+ processors hit the local market. The cheaper Phantom XP only scratches the surface of what the Athlon XP 3000+ can do, while the more expensive Poly 880NF2-3000 shows what can happen when you match the latest and greatest AMD processor to some quality system components. The question is, however, do they stack up against Intel's P4 offerings?

ibuypower.com Phantom - XP PC
The iBuyPower Phantom XP is one of the very first systems we've tested to use the Athlon XP 3000+. The 3000+ represents AMD's latest-and-greatest generation of desktop processors, code-named Barton. Even though the clock speed of the 3000+ (2.167GHz) is identical to that of the currently shipping 2700+, the newer design increases the L2 cache from 256K to 512K, which boosts performance.

In addition to the Athlon XP 3000+, our Phantom XP included 512MB of fast PC3700 DDR RAM, which came in a single DIMM, leaving two slots free. Our test system's sported a suite of onboard drives--a fast 7,200rpm 80GB Western Digital hard drive, a 16X DVD-ROM drive, and a 48X/16X/48X CD-RW drive.

As ZDNet Labs revealed in its benchmarks, this new 2.167GHz chip, with its bigger L2 cache and larger transistor count, bangs out serious application performance and matches up well with a high-end graphics card, such as our system's Nvidia GeForce4 4800 Ti card. The graphics subsystem supports a maximum resolution of 1,600x1,200 at 32-bit colour and in testing delivered flawless DVD playback.

In fact, with the Phantom XP, the 3000+ provides a significant boost in performance over what we've seen from 2800+ CPU-based desktops. The Phantom XP's overall application performance is similar to what we've seen from 2.66GHz P4-based systems, but it's still not at the level of 3.06GHz P4-based desktops, as AMD's 3000+ moniker implies. And while the Phantom XP's performance is more than powerful enough for nearly any app you'd think of running, it's still a hair slower than the 3000+-based Polywell Poly 880NF2-3000.

The GeForce4 Ti 4800 inside the Phantom XP system is the fastest consumer graphics engine readily available from Nvidia (we're all waiting for the GeForce FX to hit store shelves). The GeForce4 Ti series is a tried-and-true performer: it has been the graphics engine of choice for gamers for some time and churns out performance more than powerful enough for just about any game available today. However, hard-core gamers know that there are faster 3D graphics engines available, such as the ATI Radeon 9700, and there are potentially faster ones on the horizon.

Polywell Computers Poly 880NF2-3000
The second system in our Athlon 3000XP roundup came with all the bells and whistles firmly attached. As a result, the Polywell Poly 880NF2-3000 flew through our benchmark tests like no other AMD-based system before it. The Athlon XP 3000+ represents more than a speed bump in the Athlon line: it's the first processor based on AMD's new Barton core. The Poly has a higher sticker price than the other Barton-based system we tested, the iBuyPower Phantom XP, but the extra cash nets you a faster graphics card, double the memory, dual hard drives, productivity software, and slightly better performance.

As one of the first systems we've tested to feature the Athlon XP 3000+ CPU from AMD, the Polywell Poly 880NF2-3000 promises impressive benchmark results, killer multimedia, and breathtaking gaming performance. As you'll see from ZDNet Labs' testing, the chip lives up to its billing, although the fastest Pentiums still outclass it in some areas. Polywell has matched this top-of-the-line processor with additional high-end features to meet the needs of demanding gamers, graphics users, and home-business owners.

Our evaluation system shipped with 1GB of fast 400MHz DDR memory in two 512MB DIMMs (the motherboard supports a maximum of 3GB). The system also boasted a robust hard drive configuration, featuring two 80GB Western Digital drives and a High-Point controller running at RAID 0. Industrial-strength gamers know full well that the ATI Radeon 9700 graphics card found in our Poly test unit is the industry's fastest to date, thanks in part to its 128MB of video memory. The card, like that of the GeForce4 in the iBuyPower Phantom XP, features a DV-I port on the back for connecting to all-digital displays as well as an S-Video out for connecting to a TV.

Polywell combines the new CPU with fast 400MHz DDR SDRAM memory and a fast hard disk subsystem into a system that's capable of very speedy application performance. The 880NF2-3000's overall application performance is on a par with that of 2.8GHz P4-based systems. This level of performance, however, is still not quite into 3.06GHz P4 territory.

Gaming performance doesn't get much better than this. Combining the speedy CPU, memory, and hard disk subsystems with the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (the fastest consumer graphics card available on the market today), means that gamers of any ilk--even the most hard-core--will be clamoring to get their hands on this hardware.

Neither system lived up to the processor's 3000+ label, which under AMD's creative naming scheme, implies that it should match the performance of a comparably equipped PC with a 3.06GHz Pentium 4. Instead, our Labs found that these PCs performed along the lines of PCs with 2.6GHz to 2.8GHz P4s. These scores are nothing to scoff at for a 2.167GHz processor, but they indicate that AMD is simply struggling to keep up with Intel, which keeps on cranking up the P4 clock speed. For speed freaks, certainly, P4 remains the clear performance leader.

And until AMD can get its Athlon 64 out the door, that gap will likely keep widening. The company recently conceded that it has pushed back the Clawhammer launch date to September, when it plans to release both desktop and mobile versions. (For now, AMD is first putting the finishing touches on the server version, called Opteron.) Check back with us later this year to find out whether AMD can build a processor that's worth the wait.

• Related stories

• Alerts

Be the first to comment on this article!

• Just In

• Most Popular

Reader Services

Popular Topics

Essentials