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AMD Athlon 3200 or 3500???

Linus27

Linus27

Linus27

Associate
Joined
27 Jan 2006
Posts
6
I was going to buy an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice but it looks like I can afford a 3500+. Is it worth me spending the extra or is there not really that much of a gain in performance?? Just wondering if I should save money or I will get a big jump in power.
 
As above - go for the 3700+

The latest chips have been great overclockers too, unlike the 3500+

I'd either save some money and get the 3200+ or stretch to the 3700+ (worth it IMO due to the extra cache and clocking ability)
 
hehe my 3500+ seems a reasonable enough clocker :P - but yeah the SD's have a good rep. (just over 2.6ghz @ 1.5 volts on my 3500+)
 
I would say if your going to overclock get the Athlon 64 3200 v. Otherwise get the athlon 64 3700 sd. Better than the athlon 64 3500 and only a small price difference.
 
Larok said:
the 3700 has the san diego core which has a larger on board memory than the 3500. The venice is still a solid chip though and good value.

Look here for a definitive benchmark comparing many CPU's

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/

I would be tempted just to skip to the bechmarking results.
Click to expand...


I put in some data to a spreadsheet from a tomshardware review, and the following was true for games:

Average FPS - Higher is better

Athlon 64 3200+ 149.75fps
Athlon 64 3500+ 158.58fps
Athlon 64 3700+ 161.98fps

And for encoding apps:

Average time in seconds over many tests, lower is better:

Athlon 64 3200+ 315.75 seconds
Athlon 64 3500+ 286.75 seconds
Athlon 64 3700+ 284.33 seconds

As you can see, 1MB cache of the 3700+ San Diego isn't worth barely anything over the 3500+, so in my opinion, probably not worth paying the extra for. If you are getting a good motherboard which can do 300Mhz Bus, you would be better overclocking the 3200+...
 
Hey linus (mike to me) yes its Danny here

The 3700+ overclcoks a hell of a lot more than the 3200+ and the 3500+

If your overclocking and cannot afford the 3700+ .. go for the 3200+

Talk to you later
 
Not the 3500+. Some people do ok with them, but no better than others do with a 3200+. The 3700+ though would be a better bet unless you can find a reasonably priced opty 144/146. I got my 144 for just over £100 including delivery from OCUK, but rarity has added 50 odd notes to that. I'd probably go for the 3200+ now or even the 3000+ which can still get up to FX55 speeds and more with the right cooling and motherboard.
 
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