AMD64 3200+ Venice S939

Date: May 24, 2005 - Author: Rob Williams - Editor: Rob Williams

AMD has had their share of new CPU releases lately, and more are coming. Recently, they released the Venice and San Diego chips, with a 90nm core, added SSE3 support, and has superb overclocking potential. They also use less power, which means lower temps! Read on as I put the Venice 3200+ through a slew of benchmarks.

Introduction

As said in the intro, AMD recently released their Venice and San Diego core processors. The primary differences between the two, is that the Venice uses 512Kb L2 Cache, and the San Diego uses 1024Kb L2 Cache. Venice is for the casual mainstream computer user, while San Diego will be, or hopes to be, the hardcore gamers core of choice.

Both Cores, use a 90nanometer process, as all the current AMD chips being produced will. AMD recently got rid of the 130nm cores, and because of this, the potential of the chip is better.. lower temperatures and higher overlocks. Even the Winchester core at 90nm, couldn't handle higher frequencies, which held some overclockers back, and this is where Venice could make it's mark.

So what does the Venice bring to the table, to make it better than the Winnie? AMD added the SSE3 Instruction set to both the Venice and San Diego, which should help out in some areas, primarily media and development, but not gaming. It should be mentioned that this is not a simple copy/paste, so to speak, of the SSE3 instructions from the Prescott Intel chips. Prescott has a few more instructions in the set, that are used towards their Hyper-Threading technology. So if you were considering an Intel due to the Hyper-Threading factor, then the addition of SSE3 to the Venice/Sandy shouldn't sway you.

Another feature added, is a better memory controller. An issue with the controller on the Winchester chips, was that if you used 4 Single-Sided sticks of memory, it would force you to use 2T timings, which held back performance. This has been fixed on the new cores.

Lastly, another thing that makes the Venice so great, is that it runs using a relatively low 66W of power, meaning lower temps, and higher overclocks. In the review, I am going to benchmark the stock chip, and then see how far I can push the overclock. The Venice comes in four flavours, the 3000+, 3200+, 3500+ and finally the 3800+. I'll be taking a look at the 3200+, which comes in at a stock speed of 2.0GHz.

CPU-Z

I didn't expect to push my personal overclock too anything impressive, mainly due to my memory. The Samsung memory is low end, and is not meant for overclocking. Attempting to overclock it at all tends to result in a system that won't POST, or will will allow you to get into Windows, then decide to BSOD. Keep in mind, that with better memory, especially some with tighter timings, the overclock will be improved. Here is the out-of-the-box CPU-Z reading:

We can see that CPU-Z verifies the Venice chip, as reflected by the E3 revision. We can also see the new SSE3 instructions added to the list. We can also note that the stock CPU voltage is 1.408. The base multiplier is also 10, and the HTT is obviously 200MHz, or 200.6MHz in this case.

Even with this standard memory, I was able to get the Venice 3200+ to a respectable level. I have to stress though, that due to the memory, it will hold back on the overclock, and even stability. If you have better, even performance memory, you should be able to push the overclock higher than I did, right out of the box.

Overclocking

After an entire afternoon of overclocking, I had a great time with Blue Screens of Death. I got them often, and had to tweak further. Due to my memory being extremely fussy, I had to settle at 270*10, for a 2.7GHz overclock.

Without a doubt, a 700MHz increase on air, is great. Especially where I noticed no temperature increases, after overclocking. Before we get into the temperatures, let's take a look at all the various stress tests the Venice 3200+ went through, both at stock and overclocked speeds.

First, we'll benchmark with two very popular programs. Super Pi is a program that calculates Pi to a specified amount of decimal places. I ran the 1 Million calculation. Also, in Sandra 2005, I ran the CPU Arithmetic Benchmark.

In Super Pi, the lower the number, the better. The overclocked chip processed Pi 35% faster than stock. Considering that this overclock was not difficult to acquire, especially with my memory, this is a great result. With the Sandra test, you can see that the overclock seriously improved performance in these as well.

Sandra, Everest

As we can see, the difference between the stock and overclocked performance is very handy to 34.6%.

PC Mark, Conclusion

The previous tests all focus primarily on mathematical equations, and this is why the percentages or increase are always so close. Getting into the CPUBench 2003 and PC Mark 2004 tests, they will fluctuate moreso with each test. Even so, CPUBench gave us a 35.1% performance increase with our overclock, and PC Mark 2004 gave us a 30.7% increase.

One thing that I am very impressed with, is the low temperatures with the CPU during all tests. The computer is in a room with a high ambient temperature.. moreso than it should be. Therefore, temperatures usually end up being higher, especially when equipped with only the stock cooler. Either way, the CPU hardly rose above 48ºC, and maxed at 54ºC after running Prime95 for an hour. In a normal ambient temperature, and using a good CPU cooler, 40ºC and lower should be achieved easily.

In the end, it's hard to not recommend a Venice core AMD64. Even with generic memory and a stock cooler, I was easily able to achieve a 35% performance increase with my overclock. With a good cooler and performance memory, I am sure that 2.8GHz to 3.0GHz could be hit. There have even been rumors of some water cooled 3200+'s hitting 3.1GHz and 3.2GHz.

If you are a performance fiend though, the San Diegos are targetted at the hardcore gamer crowd. The Sandy will be available in the 3700+, 4000+ and FX-57 form. With the X2 (Dual Core) chips being released within two weeks, you may want to hold out to see the performance results of them. However, Dual Core will not likely affect gamers.. for now. They will however benefit Multi-Media workstations, such as video editing and 3D Graphics design. They will also be much more expensive than Venice core.

Considering you can achieve 2.7GHz quite easily with the Venice, adding to the fact that it also falls just under $200US over at Newegg, this is certainly a great value as well. It's also only $8 - $10 more than the Winnie core. If you are building a new system, then check it out. If you already are using a 3200+ Winchester or close to it, you may want to hold off, unless the better overclocking and lower temps are worth it. Otherwise, wait until X2 and San Diego benchmarks are numerous, then make a decision.

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