AMD Athlon XP 1700+ vs. Intel P4 1.6a - what is faster?

[gplracer]

I know you can overclock most p4's to 2.13 or 2.4 if you are lucky. My question is how does the speed of that compare to an athlon xp 1700+ that is overclocked. My current system has an epox 8kha+ and an Athlon XP 1700+ (1606mhz @ 146fsb). I need to build a system for my brother and I am unsure which to go with.

My SiSoft Sandra scores are as follows:

Dhrystone ALU 4518 MIPS
Whetstone FPU 2230 MFLOPS

Int ALU/RAM Bandwidth 861 MB/s
Float FPU/RAM Bandwidth 928 MB/s

HardOCP benchmarked a P4 1.6a overclocked to 2.13ghz and got the following:

Dhrystone ALU 4167 MIPS
Whetstone FPU 2669 MFLOPS

 

[LukFilm]

P4 is DEFINITELY slower 95% of the time.

 

[Aragorn992]

A P4 1.6@2.1 would kill an Athlon XP 1700+ in the majority of apps. Not just because of the clock speed but the increased bus speed on a P4 healps alot especially when using RDRAM.

 

[gplracer]

Dude look at the scores above that is not smoking it.

 

[AndyHui]

At default speeds, the Athlon XP 1700+ would be faster than an Intel Pentium 4 1.6A GHz.

Once you overclock the Pentium 4 however, it is going to be significantly faster.

 

[MilkPowderR]

<< A P4 1.6@2.1 would kill an Athlon XP 1700+ in the majority of apps. Not just because of the clock speed but the increased bus speed on a P4 healps alot especially when using RDRAM. >>


mm... I don't think so.
Never, ever, never go by "synthetic" boring unrealistic benchmarks. I would suggest ya go by the actual real-world applications that we run everyday including games and business apps. I know what range of scores people get with P4 DDR and Rambus on the 3DMark scores vs. Athlon XP DDR systems would score on the 3DMark. A descent setup with the Athlong XP@ 1.7- 1.8Ghz score over 10,000. P4 woodies@ 2.7- 3.0Ghz score over 10,000. That range of scores include Rambus RAM(One or two owners have done that with their Rambus setup). I am impressed with P4's OC'ing ability but you need hell lot of mhz to compete with AXP systems. I have seen few of Rambus RAM P4 systems OC'ed scores.. but not so good yet. There aren't many results with Rambus users so far. I'm waiting for more results provided by the quad-pumped dual channel ram speeds on the Rambus@ 133mhz- up.

 

[gplracer]

Unlike some people I really do not care if I have an AMD system or an Intel system. I have had both. Right now I have an AMD system because it was the most bang for the buck a few months ago. I just want to know which is the best to buy now.

 

[jiffylube1024]

<< A P4 1.6@2.1 would kill an Athlon XP 1700+ in the majority of apps. Not just because of the clock speed but the increased bus speed on a P4 healps alot especially when using RDRAM. >>



I don't know about the 1.6A@2.1 absolutely killing the XP 1700+, but a 1.6A@2.4 GHz with any kind of RAM (DDR or RDRAM) sure would!

 

[gplracer]

What about the comparison of the overclocked p4 to the overclocked 1700+ above that I have? Thanks!

 

[Duvie]

Well at 1600mhz you basically have a amd xp 1900+, right??? With the enhanced fsb I assume you are running ram at 292mhz or near pc2400 scores....

A 1.6a at 2.4ghz which would mean a 150fsb...put that on an asus sis645 board with a 4:5 ratio and pc2700 (hell even crucial pc2100 has been seen running this speed) would be 375mhz ddr and should score in the 2700 sandra scores which wuold be about 500mb/sec faster then the athlon and 200mb/s faster then an rdram default platform...so loose that notion only rdram can make the board faster then the xp...With rdram pc1066 that maybe another issue compared to pc2700 but it would definitely pull away from athlon xp...

Now go to www.tomshardware.com and read article on 533fsb p4....look at 1900+ vs 2200a p4 and remember this board above will be faster then that...You will see that 2200a p4 beats the 1900+ xp in majority of apps. the 2000+ is close to and in neglible territory to some.

If you get a 1.6a to 2.2ghz with sis645 or i845 with 3:4 multiplier above 133fsb this will be just slightly better then the athlon xp 1900+....IMHO....

in THG test
stock 1.6a vs 1700+ = athlon xp wins 17 and losses 4 (no contest...some by big margin)

1.6@2.2 p4 vs athlon 1700+@1900+ = p4 win 14 and losses 7 (not to big of lead)

Now if that was oc'd rdram I think the 1900+ losses a few more and falls further behind...

 

[ucdnam]

Since I own both, I can tell you that there is no real world difference. My 1700xp is overclocked to about 1800xp levels and my 1.6a is right now overclocked to 2240 (140 FSB).

My SiSoft Sandra scores, if you care to know, for the XP were:
ALU: 4247
FPU: 2094

My P4 at 2240 scores:
ALU: 4151
FPU: 1172/2752

Does it matter? Not really, I can't feel the difference.

 

[Aragorn992]

<< A descent setup with the Athlong XP@ 1.7- 1.8Ghz score over 10,000. P4 woodies@ 2.7- 3.0Ghz score over 10,000. >>



Perhaps. However I said an "Athlon XP 1700+" aka 1.47Ghz.

Also, if you dont plan on overclocking the Athlon is clearly the faster processor.

 

[LP29]

I would go with P4 because it's setup produces less noise than the athlon xp. You don't need to worry about heat issues with the P4, plus most of the new software being developed will use SSE2 which the athlon xp don't have.

 

[nealh]

I would agree with LP29..this is why I considered moving back to Intel P4 from my Athlon XP