Barton or t-bred?

[TheGoatMan]

My friend recently purchased a 2500+ barton chip with an abit nf7 board. Now on paper this system should run faster than my 2600+ t-bred on a MSI KT6 delta. We just got done with rigorous tests and benchmarks (using the same components of course) and the barton+nforce couldn't match the t-bred+VIA. Now on paper shouldn't the barton combo be faster? Or is this an unfair matchup between either cpu or mobo. We even matched clock speeds using the exact same ram and power supply. We ran the SiS sandra 2004 benchmarks. Now the t-bred+Via combo wasn't much ahead but was always on top in all the benchmarks. We even did dual channel on the nforce. We tried matching everything up because we didn't believe the tbred+Via combo would outperform. Can I get some insight on this?

 

[cdogg]

You'd be surprised at how much the chipset makes a difference. The Nforce2 chipset is hard to beat. Although the Barton has a faster FSB and more L2 cache, its clock speed is 300MHz slower (1833MHz vs. 2133MHz). Some applications may or may not run faster on the Barton depending on how memory intensive it really is.

I've only seen benchmarks of the both the procs you mentioned performed on an Nforce2 chipset. In most of those benchmarks, the Barton edges out in front, but not by much.

I think it's fair to say both are pretty equal and in the end, you won't feel much of a difference...


~cdogg
[tab]"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab][tab]- A. Einstein

 

[SYAR2003]

There is tree versions of xp2600+
Speed Mult Fsb Core L2
AthlonXP 2600+ | 2.13GHz | 16.0 | 133 | Thoroughbred |256 |
AthlonXP 2600+ | 2.08GHz | 12.5 | 166 | Thoroughbred |256 |
AthlonXP 2600+ | 1.92GHz | 11.5 | 166 | Barton |512 |

 

[paparazi]

From what Goatyman said: Barton or Thoroughbred, you must be comparing the Barton core XP2.5+ (1833mhz 512L2 cache 333fsb)to the Thoroughbred core XP2.6+ (2.08mhz 256L2 cache 333fsb)they didn't make the 266fsb XP2.6+ for more than a few weeks when it was first introduced and the Barton core XP2.6+ has only been with us a a handfull of weeks and isn't very readily available yet.
So I too am surprised by the results.
The Nforce2 with the XP2.5+ should be by all accounts just ever so slightly quicker (my guess is 2-3%)
Nforce2 motherboards can be very particular with memory type and make, it could be that the more tollerant Via KT600 chipset just likes your ram better.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[smaxted]

I have pretty much the same righ except with an Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard and my friends 2600+ was just a tick better in the benchmarks...so I kicked his @$$ by overclocking the Barton to 2.145ghzwhich is practically the Athlon XP 3000+ and with a bus of 195mhz the AGP and PCI cards didn't act funny. This was all with stock cooling as well. I haven't tried hitting 200mhz bus yet because I need some better ram...anyways just thought I would pass along a story....

Scotty Mac a.k.a smaxted

"Another day, another problem"

 

[TheGoatMan]

Ok. So another problem we faced was the overclocking ability comparisons. We maxed out the 2500+ at 2.2 ghz. We ran the arithmatic bench and came up with 8307. Now we cranked the 2600+ to 2.5 ghz and it pulled 9401. Also when we ran dual channel pc4000 on the nforce it came up 100 points short of the KT600 single channel bandwidth. Also we popped in his 9700 pro into the nforce and still couldn't match as far as the video benchmarks. Although all tests were close the KT600 with the t-bred was always ahead. What really sucked about the barton was the multiplier was locked at 11. Even the cache bandwidth wasn't as good. Someone told me that the cache was faster on the tbred chips. Any more insight?

 

[SYAR2003]

http://www.hardocp.com/articleprint.html?article_id=476

 

[SYAR2003]

I thought you was compairing Barton an t-bred .
Running an different chipsets and different graphics
isn't very objective test.

 

[TheGoatMan]

The tests were mainly comparing the barton and tbred. The other tests were to see chipset and graphic differnces. Between the chips of course.

 

[SYAR2003]

I would say BARTON.
Just replaced my t-bred xp2200+ with a locked barton
xp2500+ witch has the same multiplier as xp3200+ .
The difference of xp2500+ and xp3200+ is :
11 * 166 (xp2500+)
11 * 200 (xp3200+)

So even with the locked multiplier at xp2500 .
I just set it at 11 * 200 at my nForce2 Ultra 400(Abit NF7-s)
and bang i got a xp3200+.

SYAR