Article Type: Hardware - System
Article Date: June 25, 2002
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With the release of the latest Athlon CPU, Thoroughbred, on the .13 micron process, it's time for a new look at the state of the art computer system.
As many readers will know, there isn't much difference between the old Thunderbird 2100 core, and the new Thoroughbred at 2200. The only difference is that the die has shrunk and is on the .13 micron process, with the chip now running at a lower voltage.
Strangely enough, this has resulted in some odd compromises, particularly in overclocking potential. Let's lay out the components and have a look at one of the fastest gaming systems in the world.
Let’s face it, AMD has not kept pace with Intel in terms of CPU speeds. The 2200 arrives late, and it doesn’t look like there is much headroom. I don’t believe we are going to see any more than 2400 with Thoroughbred, and I doubt if the later “Barton” (same core but with 512k cache) will take us much higher. We’ll have to wait for “Hammer” to move beyond 2500 or so.
In the meantime 2.53 GHz can be had from Intel, granted you have to layout $600 US, twice what you will pay for the best from AMD.
For those who don’t mind paying the premium, the latest Intel CPU is a powerhouse. Clock for clock it doesn’t compete with AMD, but there is some headroom on the Pentium IV also.
The latest chipset technology from VIA is the KT333, which will be replaced by the KT400 or some similar designation early in the fall. The KT333 allows gamers to take advantage of the latest memory technology, although the benefits aren’t very noticeable moving from 266MHz DDRAM.
- Mobo: ASUS A7V333 (VIA KT333/8233)
- CPU: AMD Thoroughbred 2200 (13.5 * 133FSB)
- CPU Cooling: Alpha PAL 8045
- RAM: 512MB Mushkin PC2400
- Video: Creative 3D Blaster Ti4600
- Audio: Creative Audigy
- CD-ROM: Toshiba 75X CD
- Hard Drive: 40GB Maxtor ATA/133 hard drive
- Case: Coolerguys Windtunnel II Gamer (five fans)
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| ASUS A7V333 |
I have generally preferred ABIT for my game systems, but I have also used the odd ASUS mainboard over the years. I found a good price on the A7V333, so for variety I chose ASUS. I’m glad I did.
Memory is a critical component, and I tend to stick with Crucial or Mushkin. I always buy the fastest available, since inevitably it will be used in a board a few months later that pushes the limits again. In this case I used Mushkin PC 3200 in the form of two 256MB parts.
The only GeForce4 I have is Creative’s, and it’s a good one. These top-end GeForce4 boards vary only a small amount in performance anyway, and Creative’s is available at a good price.
I happen to have two Creative parts in this machine, since I bought the Audigy almost as soon as it hit the market. While the drivers may not be quite perfect yet, the overall sound performance is excellent. And the board is very, very fast in sound processing, further offloading the CPU.
As usual, cooling issues are the crux of the matter. AMD now requires a CPU overheat shutdown circuit on all mainboards they approve. In the current crop of mainboards, only a few meet this latest requirement.
But no wonder the requirement is in place. It’s not “business as usual,” in spite of the fact that the heat dissipation characteristics of the latest generation Athlon are improved over the XP. The Thoroughbred is on a smaller die—and that means less surface area to contact your HSF.
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| ALPHA PAL 8045 |
Which in turn means that you better have the best HSF you can afford, particularly if you plan to overclock your CPU. No better time to invest in water cooling, unless you have a well-ventilated case, a cool office, and a very efficient HSF.
This is also the time to consider the type of grease that conducts heat between your HSF and CPU. Arctic Silver III is the best out there, and easy to apply. DO NOT USE YOUR FINGER for this job. A flat and flexible piece of plastic works best. Don’t use too much.
The ALPHA PAL 8045 is a good choice for cooling, as is the Swiftech MCX462. Both of these units have extremely high thermal efficiency. Both require installation prior to installing the mainboard in the case, but both can be removed without later removing the mainboard.
You’ll want a case with reliable ventilation. That old stock ATX case from five years ago isn’t going to allow you sufficient cooling in most office settings. Remember, these new CPU’s put out 85 Watts of heat energy. Check out the cases at Coolerguys.com or 3dcool.com for some current designs that are good at pushing hot air out and pulling cool air in.
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| ATHLON Thoroughbred CPU |
While I meet all the requirements mentioned above, I was still limited in my overclocking on this latest AMD hardware. I expected to get more than the 13 percent or so that I achieved.
My office is usually 65 to 68F, except late in the day (after 5 or 6 PM). The Windtunnel is very well ventilated, with two 80cm intake fans, and three output fans, including one immediately behind the CPU. There aren’t any major heat sources in the case other than the CPU, since the GeForce4 doesn’t put out as much heat as the old GeForce3.
So…why is it that this .13 micron CPU lacks headroom for overclocking?
I haven’t discovered any very clear answers. The consensus appears to be that early runs on new process creates CPU’s that have less tolerance than later runs. As the process is refined, production improves and additional headroom is the result. Time will tell if that is the case with the Thoroughbred.
Installation is the same as with any Athlon CPU. The limitation won’t be the socket but rather your mainboard BIOS. Last I heard ABIT had not released a new BIOS to cover the new CPU, whereas both ASUS and Gigabyte have released their updates.
There are always two sets of data when building a new system: the subjective and the objective sets. Subjectively, the speed increase moving from 1666 MHz to 1800 MHz and from 266 memory to 333 isn’t very noticeable. Some things seem a bit faster, like bootup to desktop and opening programs like MSWord.
Objectively, benchmarks increase by about 8 percent.
With overclocking added to the picture, there is a change. I ran a number of configurations:- 13.5x 133 (1800)
- 13.5x 150 (2025)
- 12.5x 163 (2041)
This latter combination gave me the best overall performance in games and benchmarks, as you’ll see.
3DMark 2001SE is a DirectX 8-based benchmark that places a great deal of stress on the video hardware. Default mode of the test is 1024x768x32-bit color.
While memory bandwidth is still an issue, it is less so than with earlier releases of MadOnion’s 3DMark. 3DMark has increasingly moved from being a system benchmark to focusing more narrowly on the video hardware alone. I think this is entirely appropriate since video hardware does 85 percent of the work that used to be done by the CPU.
I used the latest certified NVIDIA Detonator driver, 29.42 for all tests.
In 3DMark 2001 SE the default Thoroughbred 2200 at 1800MHz gave me a 3DMarks of 11,481. Whew! That is an incredible benchmark, even given the GeForce4 Ti4600, which is an extremely powerful accelerator. A comparable score for the P4 at 2.53 GHz (the fastest currently out there) is about 10,940.
Overclocked results are even more impressive. At 13.5x 150 (2025 MHz) the 2200 scored a whopping 12,448. And at 12.5x 163 the score jumped to 13,242. Unbelievable!
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3DMark 2001 Chart  |
I found this a bit puzzling at first, but it just seems that the FSB is very important to some graphics functions and to memory performance. A high multiplier alone is not always the best way to go. Increasing the FSB by almost 25 percent gives the best overall benchmark scores.
I can tell you that all of this really gets my heart pumping as I look forward to testing the next generation of video hardware from ATI and Matrox on this system. I’m hoping to hit the 15,000 mark before August.
This past winter Novalogic released the Comanche 4 Demo with built-in benchmarking capabilities and DirectX 8.1 support. This benchmark is a better indicator of system performance than 3DMark, and since it is based on an actual flight simulation, it’s a better indicator of performance for combat simulations than Quake III. Default configuration is 1024x768 with 32-bit color.
The best comparison I could make here was with my old Athlon XP CPU at 1666, and the new 2200 running at default speed of 1800 MHz. The old Athlon generated 38.4 to the new Athlon’s 44.7.
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| An IL-2 makes an impact. |
I ran a batch of other simulations also, including Falcon 4, Jane’s F/A-18, WWII Fighters, European Air War, IL-2 Sturmovik, WarBirds III, Flight Simulator 2002 and Combat Flight Simulator 2. I experienced no glitches with any of these. The sim I fly most often, IL-2 Sturmovik, was smoother than ever.
Thoroughbred performance is good, there’s no doubt about it. It is equal or better than Intel’s top of the line CPU, for a much better price.
But I can’t help feeling that it’s just not good enough to justify an upgrade. At least, not if you are in the 1800 region already. If you are, I would recommend you wait for the next CPU to arrive sometime in late summer or early fall. “Barton” will be identical to the current Athlon except it will double the L1 cache to 512k.
Following Barton in the early winter we’ll finally see the Clawhammer CPU. This true 64-bit processor will be much more powerful than the current generation, particularly if XP is released as a true 64-bit OS this fall.
While current performance is good, I was disappointed in the limits to overclocking. But it’s good to know that these are very early runs on the new process, and later runs may perform better. It will be interesting to see how these new CPU’s perform with new chipsets, like the nForce II that will show up this fall.
Finally, when combined with even more powerful 3-D accelerators, like Matrox's new Parhelia 512, 3DLabs's P10 and NVIDIA’s NV30, the future for gaming systems is bright. It won’t be long and we’ll be running at 5 GHz and beyond. Who can wait?
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