AMD Athlon 64 FX-57: The Fastest Single Core
by Derek Wilson on June 27, 2005 11:47 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
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.
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cryptonomicon - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
what a beastsaratoga - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
The 533 vs. 400 would make an interesting benchmark. Given the availability of relatively low latency 533 (or at least 500), it might be worthwhile for people who must have the best performance (most FX buyers I'd guess).dougSF30 - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
> Who is being realistic here?Hello? As you said *in your own post*, anyone splashing out $1000 for an FX-57 can afford to buy top-end memory for it.
Otherwise, what's the point? DDR-333 is really cheap these days, maybe they should test with that?
Viditor - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
I have a feeling that the mobo AT used was a poor choice...I have checked all of the other reviews I could find, and every one of them that overclocked was able to be stable at 3.0 GHz on air...
Goi - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
I would've liked a bit more analysis rather than just describing the tests and displaying the results. I notice that this has become more or less an AT template in reviews, with little analysis and a lot of data. I think a bit more analysis on interesting points would be helpful. For example, the 200MHz bump from the FX-55 to the FX-57 causes disproportionate performance increases in certain benchmarks. An detailed analysis on why(going from the 130nm hammer core to the 90nm Venice core with improved memory controller for example) would be helpful I think. There's just too much numbers and not enough analysis IMHO.Viditor - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
blckgrffn - I understand your point, but this is a Dream Machine chip anyway, so we should definately see it at it's best (latest mobo, DDR533 LL, etc...).JMHO
miketheidiot - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
this new memory controller has me thinking ddr2....blckgrffn - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
For those of you who want DDR500 etc included, I don't think that you understand how/why these articles are written. I can appreciate that you want the whole platform to be about the best performance, but then we would lose all sense of just how much better this CPU is compared to the old ones.So, LL DDR500 performs awesome. Great. I suppose if you are buying a $1000 processor you will probably drop $250 on a gig of ram. Super. But for the rest of us, getting ram that runs 2-2-2-10 is hard enough, let alone trying for that super duper ram that runs in how many mobos due to voltage requirements? One or two? Who is being realistic here?
suryad - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
Looks like if AMD had some sort of HT scheme like Intel did...there would be no benchmark where the Intel would be ahead...but I am most impressed that AMD has now taken over the domain of multimedia and encoding and so on from Intel...cant wait for 3 ghz multicore FX procs!dougSF30 - Monday, June 27, 2005 - link
Dear Lord! Low latency DDR-500 or DDR-533 will peform better than low latency DDR-400!