Processor Equivalency Question

I've always been under the impression that the numbers behind the XP in an
Athlon are about equal to the processor speed. Thus, an XP 1800 runs like
a P4 1.8GHz, and an XP 2500 like a P4 2.5GHz, assuming, of course, that the
rest of the system is equivalent. Is that roughly correct?

I have a XP2500 on an Asus A7N8X, nForce2 mb, and my son has a P4 2.4GHz
Barton on an Asus P4P8X, 865P mb, and we were wondering if they performed
at about the same speed. Both have 512 ram, PC 2700.

Thanks,

Jack

Jack Bruss wrote:

> I've always been under the impression that the numbers behind the XP in an
> Athlon are about equal to the processor speed. Thus, an XP 1800 runs like
> a P4 1.8GHz, and an XP 2500 like a P4 2.5GHz, assuming, of course, that the
> rest of the system is equivalent. Is that roughly correct?

Early on, the XP ratings closely paralleled the comparable P4 ratings.
(And that's why people often make the mistake of assuming that's what
the number means). The XP rating is the comparable performance of an
Athlon Thunderbird (pre-XP) chip if it were possible to run at that
speed. For example, an XP2500 chip has an equivalent performance to a
Thunderbird chip at 2500 MHz.


> I have a XP2500 on an Asus A7N8X, nForce2 mb, and my son has a P4 2.4GHz
> Barton on an Asus P4P8X, 865P mb, and we were wondering if they performed
> at about the same speed. Both have 512 ram, PC 2700.


P4 Barton? I don't think such a chip exists. There is no one metric
to easily compare processor performance. An AMD chip will do some
things better, and a P4 will do other things better. Pick a task (such
as MPEG2 encoding or your favorite game's fps rating) and google some
benchmarks. That will give you a more accurate representation of
performance rather than just comparing P4 MHz to Athlon XP numbers.


-WD