Mobile Athlon XP 2400+ vs. Mobile Athlon 64 3000+

G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I'm considering two laptops which are nearly identical except for the
processors mentioned in the subject line. I'm trying to determine if the
Athlon 64 is worth paying $350 more for. My applications will mostly be
typical business use (documents, spreadsheets, Internet, etc), and
occasionally some number-crunching engineering work.

It's hard to find benchmark comparisons, but what I have been able to find
suggests that the performance boost in going to the Athlon 64 3000+ is only
about 10% to 15%. I would have expected a larger difference.

Anyone have opinions on how these CPUs compare? Any other differences
between the two that I should consider, besides computing performance?

M.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Marrow wrote:

> I'm considering two laptops which are nearly identical except for the
> processors mentioned in the subject line. I'm trying to determine if the
> Athlon 64 is worth paying $350 more for. My applications will mostly be
> typical business use (documents, spreadsheets, Internet, etc), and
> occasionally some number-crunching engineering work.
>
> It's hard to find benchmark comparisons, but what I have been able to find
> suggests that the performance boost in going to the Athlon 64 3000+ is
> only
> about 10% to 15%. I would have expected a larger difference.
>
> Anyone have opinions on how these CPUs compare? Any other differences
> between the two that I should consider, besides computing performance?

If by "number-crunching engineering work" you mean FEA and the like then see
if there's a 64-bit version of your application. If so I think you'll find
a major performance difference.

That 10-15% is running 32-bit apps on a 32-bit OS. 64-bit Windows (free
beta for a year) adds an increment, 64-bit Linux runs about twice as fast
as 32-bit. But they all run faster on the A64.

However this may be moot--the 64-bit operating systems work well enough on
desktops but IMO they aren't quite ready for prime-time on laptops. Too
much still needs tweaking to get everything working right.
>
> M.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
> However this may be moot--the 64-bit operating systems work well enough on
> desktops but IMO they aren't quite ready for prime-time on laptops. Too
> much still needs tweaking to get everything working right.

Hmm, are you using Linux and what issues are you facing?
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Paul Rubin wrote:

> "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
>> However this may be moot--the 64-bit operating systems work well enough
>> on
>> desktops but IMO they aren't quite ready for prime-time on laptops. Too
>> much still needs tweaking to get everything working right.
>
> Hmm, are you using Linux and what issues are you facing?

Neither 64-bit Linux nor 64-bit Windows has a full set of clean, reliable
drivers for the sorts of peripherals that one finds built-in on laptops.
Further, both break a certain percentage of application code.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
> > Hmm, are you using Linux and what issues are you facing?
>
> Neither 64-bit Linux nor 64-bit Windows has a full set of clean,
> reliable drivers for the sorts of peripherals that one finds
> built-in on laptops.

If you mean the Broadcom wifi card, yeah, I know about that. There's
also issues with the video chip in those Compaq units. Is there more?

> Further, both break a certain percentage of application code.

What do you mean by this?
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Paul Rubin wrote:

> "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> writes:
>> > Hmm, are you using Linux and what issues are you facing?
>>
>> Neither 64-bit Linux nor 64-bit Windows has a full set of clean,
>> reliable drivers for the sorts of peripherals that one finds
>> built-in on laptops.
>
> If you mean the Broadcom wifi card, yeah, I know about that. There's
> also issues with the video chip in those Compaq units. Is there more?

The Gentoo folks don't seem to be able to get the Synaptics touchpad drivers
working, and most of the bluetooth stuff is also masked--I can get basic
Bluetooth functioning to work for a few minutes but it's not stable. And
of course there are no 3D drivers for anything from ATI. On the Windows
side I don't recall what all wasn't working, all I recall is that it didn't
work well enough for me to want to bother with it.

>> Further, both break a certain percentage of application code.
>
> What do you mean by this?

I mean that a certain percentage of application code simply does not run
unless you compile it 32-bit and run it as 32-bit code, which if there is
no precompiled binary available means a whole new set of annoyances.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)