Athlon 64 3200+ Venice Core Processor Review

Test Setup and Overclocking Results

Test Setup

For our testing, I used what I thought was the best overclocking motherboard I had within my reach, and that was the recently reviewed DFI LanParty SLI-DR motherboard based on the nForce4 SLI chipset.  I compared the 2.0 GHz Athlon 64 3200+ Venice core processor against a Newcastle core at the same frequency.  Of course, an overclocked processor was in there as well, but more on that in just a sec.

CPU-Z Screens

The Newcastle 3200+

The Venice 3200+

You can see that both the Newcastle and the Venice still have 512 KB of L2 cache, run at 2.0 GHz but the Venice has SSE3 instructions as the only differentiating factor we can see.

Overclocking

With a new 90nm core and a new lower voltage setting, overclocking the Venice core 3200+ was something I was really eager to do.  I left the multiplier at its default 10x and started pushing the CPU frequency up.  I was interested in finding the limit on this new processor, keeping all else equal. 

The results were nothing short of amazing, as I was able to reach 2.8 GHz on the standard 1.4v voltage and with standard AMD air cooling.

I have little doubt that with some quality water cooling and voltage modifications, this core could reach 3.0 GHz and beyond.  But, let’s see how this puppy performs at these speeds.

There is a discussion thread on this article in our forums too, so check it out!