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AMD Announces "Duron" Processor
Intoxicated Duck writes: "ZDNet reported that AMD announced it's Duron processor this morning. Looks like they're trying to compete with the Celeron. Wait! wasn't the Celeron supposed to compete with AMD?" What about overclocking?
...you will call it a Moron chip.
Damn, don't the marketing guys think of this stuff?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
. . .as with the current Q2 Sellout of AMD chips, and size of the "Value" PC market, AMD is going to have to ramp up production seriously on this Duron chip to meet demand....
Much bloodwine was used in the creation of this ultimate tool - many of our warriors were killed infiltrating the evil Intel and stealing the Pentiumgram Schematics. With this station we will be the ultimate power in the universe! (oops, wrong storyline)
Even the High Counsel likes it's smooth black design and holographic technology. The Duron sisters also appreciate it's diabolical looks! You will buy one today or DIE. KAPLAH!
If these were set up in a Dual-CPU configuration would you have to pronounce it Duron-Duron?
128k on-die cache sounds great to me. Any benchmarks yet?
:)
I'm in the market for an Athlon, at least this summer, and it's great to see AMD get the business, but if I could get an extra $100 of purchasing power with one of these, I'd happily get a sweet video card or a larger hard drive as well as a chip that performs about as well as the Athlon I would have gotten.
In the meantime, I suggest the name for the "new" competing Intel counterpart soon to be marketed should be the Caveon, as in "Caveat Emptor"...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
-Foxxz
Looks like a great chip. Unique cache setup (l1 has different data then whats in l2). Anyways anyone know if it will work with SMP and amd/via's
new smp chipset/motherboard? If so goodbye
bp6+celeron hello duran smp...
I'll stick to my AMD 5x86-133pr75
Probably the BEST CPU that AMD ever made!
[Connection closed by foreign host]
The amazing Duron (tm) non-stick processor. So hot you can fry an egg on it! And its patented non-stick coating means no scraping and easy cleaning.
The product namespace is getting so crowded that we're eventually going to end up driving Dodge Urethras and using computers with the new Pederast Pro processor.
And I might as well say it now
Duron, ron ron. Duron ron.
;)
If you cant beat them might as well join them, looks like AMD may be learning a thing or two from intel.
I'd love to put these in a beowulf cluster... :)
IN all seriousness, isn't AMD having horrible supply problems already?
In a bold move that some industry pundits perceive as a reaction to AMD's announcement of their Duron processor, Intel has announced the development of the Sherwin Williams processor, which combines the tried-and-true P6 core found in the Celeron processor with new enamel- and latex-based semiconductor technologies that the company claims will provide for "A more colourful computing experience".
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Why bother? A newer faster chip will always be out, shell out the cash if you want it. I rather do that then run the risk of burning something up, and be with out it.
The chip sounds nice on lower end computers, but I'll stick to my PIII.
-= Majere =-
Well.. the side of the Borg cube did have "Intel Inside" on it....
the Press Release is here. And the FAQ is here. The Spitfire has come a long way baby ;)
The article doesn't give the complete story.
They omitted the fact that the Duron will be extended to allow 2-way SMP.
The new processor will be known as the "Duron Duron". The motherboard chipset required to support it will be known as "Da-Doo Ron Ron"
Here is Anand's Comdex '99 coverage, which is an excellent resource for those wanting to know more about AMD's future.
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Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
I hate to sound like a newbie here, but pants-shitting? eh? Is this some kind of variation on grits in pants or what?
~luge(OT, but whatever...)
IAAL,BIANLY
The treachery of the Duron clan will not go unanswered!
I'm surprised nobody has noticed this, A M D has A-thlon at the top and D-uron at the bottom. My questions is what's in the middle? M-oron?
Slashdot admins - I know you guys don't read this, since you guys make so many double posts, but if the rare chance that you do see this post, read this - you're not encouraging people to submit news. Eventually all the people that send you timely and interesting news are going to quit out of frustration, and you're going to only get hot grits news submissions.
Go get your free Palm V (25 referrals needed only!)
I remember Celeron and now we'll have to use Duron,
If this this tendency continues soon we'll have a chip named pr0n.
You can't handle the truth.
I remember in the not too distant past when Intel pretty much kept AMD flapping in the wind, snarfing up market crumbs wherever they could eek out a niche that Intel didn't find desireable enough to pursue. Well now - hasn't the little step-son grown up to pop the step-dad squarely on the nose. AMD is now toe to toe on the high end and the low end. And I for one love it!! Could it actually be possible!?!?!? DOJ and Linux (OK, so they're not technically allies) throwing egg on M$'s face and AMD whupping up Intel!?!? I must admit a bit of glee as I sit back and observe...
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
Well at least sort of have a story to the name. From the article for the readers who don't read the story
;-)
The processor's name, Duron, was derived from the Latin word "durare," which means "to last."
Well, its a dumb name. But at least its not a "Pentium" which we swear, has nothing to do with 5. Its just a crazy coincidence. Then of course they start numbering from there. Pentium II Pentium II, oops I mean Pentium III. Those Intel dudes need to get on the ball. Here's one to try:
latin root: volo, volare - fly
Intel chip name: volentium!
I'm sure I could think of more, but its been a long time since I had latin and the only other word I can remember is "dominus - master". Probably not exactly the image Intel is going for
Spyky
I'm waiting for the Cyrix M2 to be rebranded as the Moron(tm) processor.
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
I overclock on a regular basis. The main advantage is being able to squeeze some more life out of your processor before having to buy a new one.
Also, if you're proficient at overclocking, you can purchase the fastest at the time, and make it even faster.
Weren't AMD's originally aimed at the value PC market? Does this company have any clue who they're targeting or why? Back in the days of the K6-II, each successive chip was pretty much just an overclocked version of the previous chip. Most of them ran quite hot. Are we headed back to those days? Doesn't the world have enough value computer hardware? AMD was actually starting to make a decent product with the Athlons...
Let me make sure I understand this. AMD is pretty much the first company to mass market cheap processors. AMD profits. Other companies start manufacturing better cheap processors. Other companies profit. AMD makes good chips. AMD profits. Other companies return with even better chips. Other companies profit. AMD realizes they can't overclock their own chips much more. AMD has "original" plan: sell cheap chips. Rinse. Repeat.
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
Kinda interesting they picked the same suffix: RON
CeleRON, DuRON
although the athlON is kinda close
next they will be using IUM suffixes for their other processors...
OK, I'm something of a processor new junky. I follow this kind of stuff with an unhealthy devotion, so I figured I'd explain to everyone what this is before /.'s general ignorance about the subject (From my perspective anyway. Remember, I'm obsessed with this stuff.) starts to show through.
.18 process, it's just that the basic layout has been improved), and added 64K of L2 cache. Yeah, I know, 64K sounds tiny, but it's really not that bad. The most important thing about this cache is that it is an exclusive cache. In most processors, the L2 ends up duplicating the information in the L1 and only uses the amount of cache beyond the size of the L1 for additional data. For example, a Celeron has 32K of L1 and 128K of L2, however 32K of that L2 is simply holding the same information as is in the L1, giving you a total effective cache size of 128K. The Duron is different. Being based on the Athlon core, it has 128K of L1 plus the 64K of exclusive L2, which holds entirely unique data. This gives you an effective total cache size of 192K, 50% more than the Celeron which is the Duron's primary competitor. Plus, the Duron is based on the Athlon core, which is simply a lot better than the PIII core.
What is the Duron? Essentially it's AMD's answer to the Celeron. Right now their answer to the Celeron is the K6 series, but the K6 core has short pipelines and is not very optimized for high clockspeeds. The bottom line is that the K6-2 currently maxes out at 550 mhz (and in limited quantities) and it's not likely it will ever get much higher. The K6-2+ and K6-3+ (mobile chips only, with 128K and 256K on-die L2 respectively and the additional 3DNow! instructions which were added when the Athlon came out) currently max out at 500 mhz, and I doubt they'll ever get past 600 before they are phased out. Even 600 is a reach.
On the other end of the spectrum there is the Athlon. The Athlon is a brand new core that is extremely well optimized for high clockspeed. These things reach high clockspeeds so well that AMD has to underclock them to meet their contracts with OEMs (who request a certain number of processors at each clockspeed). Obviously the Athlon is where AMD's future lies, but they are considerably more expensive to manufacture than the K6 series. The combination of a large die size, the need for externel L2 cache chips, and the slot packaging adds to the price. Furthermore, AMD is finally making good money selling Athlons for the high end. They don't want to simply cut Athlon prices to sell them for the low end. AMD needs something else for the low end market.
Enter the Duron. The Duron used to have the codename of Spitfire while it was in development, so if you've heard that name before you know what it is. Basically, AMD took the Athlon core, optimized it a bit more to shrink the die and lower power consumption somewhat (although it's still made with a
The Duron itself will be released in a "Socket A" package sometime in June. Socket A is just like Slot A (which the Athlon uses), only it's a socket. The reason for the socket is because sockets are cheaper and the lack of external L2 makes a slot unecessary. The launch of the Duron will be preceded by a couple weeks by the launch of AMD's "Thunderbird" processor. The Thunderbird is just like the Duron only with 256K of exclusive L2 cache, giving it a total effective cache size of 384K. This processor should offer a real performance boost over the regular Athlon and will eventually completely replace it. Indeed, Thunderbird is just the code name. It will simply be called "Athlon" when it's released. The Thunderbird will be available for both slot A and socket A motherboards, giving those who already own a slot A motherboard an upgrade path.
I hope I didn't leave anything out.
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
I can make a $40 celeron 333 run as fast as a pIII 500 or even faster, depending on the bus speed. If it burns out then who cares? Its only $40.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Heh. What if the ship is only 90% full of penguins? Does this mean that only 10% of the ship is really being used, while the other 90% stores penguins? "Normality has been restored. If there's anything else you can't deal with, you're on your own."
---
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Who would have thought that AMD would have been inspired by that old 50's hit?
I am not a lawyer.
As for overclocking potential, my (not so humble) opinion is that it will be a hell of an overclocker. Look at the K7 - err Athlon, and this is basically a K7 with on die cache. Rumors were that the release of Spitfire - err, Duron, was delayed because it was actually beating the Athlon in benchmarks. So like the Celeron the clock speeds will probably lag behind the Athlon.
As long as they overclock as well as I think they will, I know I'm getting one. As a hardcore overclocker (and op in #celeron, efnets biggest overclocking-based channel) I think getting a chip that's gonna run at 900mhz or 1ghz for less than 200 bucks is about as good as it gets. Don't be scared by the 'value cpu' label. This is the K7 core with faster cache, albiet less of it.
Bottom line? They'll probably be faster than a P3 at the same clockspeed, for at most half the price. And that's without even putting overclocking into the picture. Don't you love competition?
- tred
The name is lame :-(
;-)
For an English speaker this Latin-derived name may associate with "durable", but for the Russian speakers it will probably associate with "durak", that means fool in Russian.
As for me, I like the idea of dual Thunderbird better
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
The AMD processor that interests me most is the Professional version, the one that supports multiple processors. I hope they do something innovating in this area. They made some great progress on processors, let's see if they can come up with some new ideas on multiple processors as well.
I remember when Athlons were new; I bought one. And a motherboard. And suffered the consequences.
I think I'll wait until this new 'duron' has been on the market a couple of months before checking it out. Just to give the motherboard manufacturers a chance to get things right.
---------------- Take the red pill
DMCA promises staying power with Moron. The new chip is based on Congress prosecutor technology and will target citizens in the market for value HRs.
By B. Elgin, Slashdot News
UPDATED April 27, 2000 7:41 PM PT
NEW YORK -- Digital Millenium Copyright Act Inc. promises staying power with a new brand of prosecutor designed for low-cost Human Rights.
The prosecutor's name, Moron, was derived from the Greek word "mOros," which means "foolish, stupid." Moron was announced Thursday by Steve Case, DMCA's chairman and CEO, at the oligarchy's annual shareholders meeting.
Moron, based on DMCA's (DCgov: DMCA) Congress prosecutor technology, will target consumers in the market for low-cost HRs.
Moron will be available this summer in sub-$10,000,000,000 companies. (Already available in $10 billion+ companies.) DMCA will offer the new law at higher court speeds than its MPAA, which has topped out at $550 billion, but is unlikely to charge much more than the $550 billion MPAA, which was introduced at $187,000 in campaign contributions.
The corporate benefit, the company said, will be low cost and much higher performance.
"We want (companies) to know they've got something good and solid, and they won't have to spend another $1,000,000 in six months or a year," said Mark Bode, Congress marketing manager.
I could keep going, but I'll spare you my very odd sense of humor...
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
Why has the computer industry returned to a Ghz verison of the 80's? ,what type of motherboard will you have to buy? Why dont we just all go back to SPARCs and APLHAs fo as similar as the chips are getting now. I say Phah! on the whole industry!
Sure the technology is better, but everything is becoming more and more proprietary hardware! Doesnt anybody remeber the goold old Pentium days, where you could buy a S7 motherboard, and then decide on a P5, Cyrix, Amd, or whatever the hell else you wanted for a processor.
If one sucked, you could go by the other and plug it in, or if a better one came out you could by that. Now if you want cheap performance, you can buy a S370 and get a celeron, but if you want to upgrade you would have to buy a new motherboard. I mean come on at least the non-propritary software advocates should complain about this.
I say open-source the hardware and go back to the good-ole days of mix'n and match'n! I say not only is Intel at fault but AMD as well. What about IBM
I sig therefore I am...
Haven't been fed lately?
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Do a dejanews search on alt.comp.hardware.overclocking and see how many people have burned out their cpu's. None. People have been running their celeron 300a's at 450 since they originally came out, and so far no ill effects. How can it affect the mobo to begin with? You can't just randomly pick a bus speed and burn out the mobo. Its designed to run at that speed. Instead of a cpu lasting 10 years it might last 5, which is forever in computer terms.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
"Your software will become one with the GPL. We have analyzed the legalese of your software licenese as not being able to withstand us. Your lawyers are irrelevent! Resistance is futile! Your archaic programming practices are authority driven! We wish to improve outselves. You must comply! Your software will adapt to service us!"
This isn't the same as the question answered in the FAQ -- a moderated queue would address all of the problems mentioned there.
--
From now on, can we just assume that someone says "what about overclocking?" whenever there's an article about a CPU? That way we don't have to read it every time.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Does this mean I'm going to score if I buy one of these processors?
Will it protect me if I do?
;-)
Sorry, couldn't resist
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
great post, dude. it seems like we used to get more of these back in the good ol' days of slashdot. now we just get schmucks like me making useless comments.
..but it's the first thing that really jumped into my mind when I saw the name.
#include
Imagine the marketing! With your new AMD chip, you can crunch your numbers blazingly fast, allowing you enough time to paint the town pink!
... or something along those lines.
Ok. So it's been a long week.
You didn't mention the big deal about the thunderbird, that the caches will run at processor speed instead of 1/2 or 1/3.
It only had a 2MB graphics card but it ran Descent 2 blazing fast, even at 640X480. I never understood why, but I loved that computer, even when my friends had PIIs. I think my dad donated that chip & motherboard to a charity, and now it's running linux and serving websites for several local non-profits. I'm so proud!
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
tcd004
Isn't 'Duron' a brand of condom?
--KMM
=-=-=
Well.. the side of the Borg cube did have "Intel Inside" on it....
Then Intel's days are numbered.
Does this
Pardon my ignorance, but I can't find these anywhere. Where might I look for specs on one of these? Do you have a link, please?
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
However, instead of referring to it as Mustang mobile, AMD is now calling the mobile chip Corvette.
They should've called it Mustang Convertible or something... Anyway, isn't such obvious usage of other companies' trademarks prohibited?
Is it just me or does this name sound like a brand of condoms?
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
> The Thunderbird is just like the Duron only with 256K of exclusive L2 cache, giving it a total effective cache size of 384K.
Does this mean that AMD will make only the Thunderbird, and bin parts--high yield cache becomes "Athlon" and low yield cache becomes "Duron"?
That's right, sir!
We're preparing to send Sharkey a set of comparative Quake benchmarks showing how our new 826 chipset beats the Duroc when used with a 66bus Celery coupled with our Rambo memory patent invention product(TM)!
Are you from the Santa Clara office?
Blessings,
Master Bait
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
No way!
It's "Durandal" from the Marathon series!
It will soon take over each of its users and trasform them into time-travelling space marines!
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
If I were to release a processor to compete with the Celeron, I would call it the Asparagon.
They're not the greatest "Pentium class" processors AMD has released, but the were definately the fastest 486 processor you could buy.
At any rate, if you want to part with those 5x86-133 procs, I might be willing to buy them, depending on your price. I've got quite a few 486 systems that could benefit from a cheap processor upgrade.
You just can't possibly come up with a more moronic name!
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I have noted that the K6-III has disappeared from the stores, and this explains it. It is a matter of product positioning. The K6-III had more cache, and fit the SS7 socket, but had a larger die than the K6-2. Why spend acres of silicon in on line 25 in Austin making K6-III parts, with a larger margin on the cheaper K6-2, when a new middle line processor is in the works.
Ah, economics... The new part needs shelf space by itself, so kill off the neato part nearest it.
Free the mallocs!
I guess I'll have to wait for the Dura to come out. I need more than just *one* unit of durability -- on any scale you wish to use!
PHUK U YUO LLEMA B1TCH!!!!!~! I WI;L KILL YUO!!! YOU PRABABLE USE WINDOZE U LAMER!!! SLASHEDOT IZ 0NLY PHOR UZ 31337 LINUX PPL. I WILL USE MI AOL PUNTER & STEEL YOURE CONNECTSHUN! I WILL 0WN J00!!!
Hello /. terminal. I am a Mac user, but no, I do not hate you. I think you have some very misguided opinions of the Mac. Maybe (and I am only guessing) you have not really used one in some time. Correction below:
"As far as macs go yes I do have a bias. A superior hardware set perhaps, "
Totally superior in terms of QoS. Never had a system with a HW failure or IRQ setting problem. PnP that works. nuff said.
"a good OS I do not believe (I have my own ideas about a user interface and that there should be an option to use a GUI or not)"
Agree. Now 'bout that OS-X...
", good upgradeability (well it may be upgradeable but it's far easier and more documented to upgrade a IBM PC and compatable machine "
No. Vendors sell a good array of g3 and g4 upgrades. I can even upgrade 6+ year old Macs to a current Porcessor. Can you upgrade a 386 to a p-iii?
"(I have a book at home that is at least 1000+ pages on the subject and there are literally thousands more), "
Hey wow, me too. Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible.
"also cost is a factor. "
You get what you pay for.
"Simply I will run anything that has modern applications, "
Like Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, Office, Flash, Dreamweaver, Director, Final Cut Pro...
"will run linux and dosn't cost more than a cheap price. "
Linux PPC, Yellow Dog, SuSE, Debian...
"I can get a new PIII linux system from a vendor at pricewatch for around $600 United States Dollars now that with linux preinstalled. You can't say that about a Mac and at the end of
the day I like a cheap computer "
Get what you pay for.
"that I can upgrade the most readily "
PnP that works is not "readily enough"?
"and that dosn't have a tradition of being a and holding computer for people who like pretty pictures. "
Maybe you like to fight with your tools...but I want to get work done, fast and with a minimal amount of BS.
Anyhoo. Do Not Feed the Trolls. They are looking for comments like you posted, just to get your goat. Consider the source and all that...
Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
Excuse me for saying so, but how the fsck did this get a score of 3?
I usually hate puns... but that was pretty darn funny. I wish I was moderating so the people reading at +1 could see your post, AC.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Jeez you weenies. Let the man post. He's usually on topic. Almost never trollish. You may not like the fact of his political/philosophical tendancies, but hell let the man speak. If you want to disagree, beat him up on logic or facts. Childish whining doesn't work.
Whatever you think you know about these chips is irrelevant. These chips are dangerous terrorists that must be brought to justice as soon as possible. If you help us bring these chips to justice, we will wipe the slate clean. All we ask is your cooperation in bringing a known set of chips to justice.
no sig
But then, in some areas it's coming back together again. The new VIA/Cyrix CPU will use Socket370, and possibly later on both SSE and 3dNow! (thus making programmers' lives easier) Also, since the Alpha and AMD CPUs use the same bus, there has been talk of making them able to use the same motherboards as well. That would be interesting!
However, in a way it doesn't matter as much. Yes, I do own lots of machines and enjoy swapping parts between them. However, what with CPUs having to improve their voltage/bus attributes in order to get better performance, many times a new CPU in an older board won't be doing its best anyway. I really don't mind CPUs being tied to the board so much, so long as my PCI cards, RAM, keyboards, etc. are still interchangeable. I don't think than CPU designers should have to limit themselves to several-year-old socket technology. Plus, if we try to get them all to use the same socket, then the advantage obviously goes to the mfr. who designs it--and the chances of getting AMD, VIA, and Intel together to design something are rather slim.
If everyone behaves themselves and uses as little processor specific assembly code as possible, then we should even be OK when the CPUs start to have different instruction sets...though a lot of things will REALLY go crazy then (Sledgehammer vs. Merced vs. lots of older CPUs still hanging around).
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
2 more tidbits.
Thunderbird will be manufactured with copper
interconnects at the new Dresden Fab.
Duron (Spitfire) will be manufactured with
aluminum interconnects at the Austin Fab.
Those who can do. Those who can't sue.
Maybe the AMD chip will be just a little slower than the Intel chip for a little less money. Then, Intel will come out with a chip that costs even less, but runs a little slower. Then, AMD comes roaring back with a chip...
Pretty soon, both Intel and AMD will be shipping out little pieces of cardboard with smaller and smaller corrugation. "Now, the Intel Celeron 7000 is just a little slower than the Celeron 6500, but what are you going to do, use both Megahertz at the same time?"
Exactly. And they are not the first to do this: Why do you think the Celeron II (by some named the 'Celermine') is physically identical to the Coppermine, apart from marking and multiplier?
Not a stupid strategy either. As far as I know, large caches are one of the hardest things to get good yields on. When a small part of the cache is non-functional, it is convenient (sp?) to be able to sell the part anyway. Half of the cache is disabled, and you have an instant Celermine. (3/4 is disabled in the AMD case.)
dufke
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Comment submitted. There will be a delay before you understand what you posted.
Ooops, I realized something about the AMD case. From the start, there will be no Durons from Dresden (aka Fab 30) - only thunderbirds. But it's a good guess they'll be stockpiling these copper-intercon. high-speed Duron's for a rainy day. Like the day Intel releases a better Celeron.
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Comment submitted. There will be a delay before you understand what you posted.
Well, is it SLOT or SOCKET-7 ???
There have been conflicting reports with regards to this. Some say that there will also be thunderbirds from Austin. Rather likely too, since the lower speed thunderbirds will not need copper tech. Also see my cache bin posts above.
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Comment submitted. There will be a delay before you understand what you posted.
"Zorak" - there is no such a word (or it's some archaic word I don't know).
;-)))))
As for the "brak", it has two meanings:
1) Marriage
2) Flaw, defect, defective merchandise.
Looking at the divorce statistics, you should admire the wisdom of the Russian folk
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Durandal was originally the name of the sword of the French noble Roland in the 8th C. Roland was Charlemagne's (sp?) cousin if I remember correctly.
One Microsoft Way
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
This thread is mostly discussing the name of the new Duron. There is also some info about the processor itself.
I want to ask everyone a question about a motherboard support. IIRC, some early Athlon motherboards were not perfect; some of them are on the revision 1.4 or even higher now.
What do you think about the quality and stability of the motherboards ? Are they going to require a new chipset or they can use the same chipset as Athlon that is proven and pretty stable by now ?
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
I mean, what were the AMD guys thinking??? I love AMD, and I even bought a K6-2 knowing that a Celeron would have been faster, out of loyalty to AMD and dislike for Intel. But, "Duron"? Isn't that the name of a popular brand of paint? I believe it's "Duron Paints and Wall-Coverings" or some such. http://www.duron.com So, they've named their new processor after paint. Wonderful. Don't tech guys ever go into hardware stores? What is Joe Average going to buy, a computer with a fast-sounding Celeron processor, or one that sounds like it doubles as a listing in a paint chip catalogue. AMD, I love you, but call it something else.
;-) Come on, AMD, wake up and change it before it's a marketing nightmare. Joe Average doesn't want a computer that's named after paint he can buy at any hardware store, and Joe Average is the main consumer for this value chip.
What was wrong with the code-name "Spitfire," anyway? The only other thing called a "spitfire" is an old type of fast sportster. It's a cool name, and counters "Celeron" quite nicely. A consumer sees "Celeron" and "Spitfire" chips and they sound competitive--remember that AMD needs John Q. Public to buy the chip, not just Slashdotters who know what they're buying beyond name. But, an average joe sees "Celeron" versus "Duron," and it's fairly obvious which one sounds better. Guys want fast, not just durable, and impressions count in selling any product.
Again, I hate to put too much emphasis on just a name, but, it's a marketing nightmare. It's a paint company name, and it sounds slow instead of showy. Gee, sounds like it should be the name for the new Cyrix chip, eh?
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
The name reminds me of a fruit called Durian (a greenish-brown fruit
with spikes on it's shell)... as someone from Australia
said on an OPB show:
`` Durian... Tastes like heaven but smells like a toilet ''
Many would agree to the latter portion of the description and won't even
eat nor be around someone who is eating one. Others, eat it no matter
what. I tend to use it has a secret weapon... more potent than
garlic/onion breath.
I know this is a better chip and all, but my point is this: most of the people I know don't know what the heck to do with all the CPU power of a Celeron 466, let alone one of these. I've seen people buying PIIIs 600, and for what? Actually, running MS Office (argh), and some only to "type the occasional resumé". I mean, I own a Toshiba Portégé 300CT, Pentium MMX 133Mhz, 64Mb RAM, and yes, I admit it, I can actually WORK IN IT doing some heavy compile-test-save-compile... (you get the picture) cycles. Now isn't THAT amazing?
"Some people see things as they are, and ask why. I dream things that never were, and ask why not."
Could you please specify the points that make current AMD chips second rate ones?
The only major trouble I know is the less-than-perfect cache speed, but that hardly cripples the chip into second class.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
All of my computer's problems are caused by its being infested with the spirits of 75-million-year-old dead space-aliens.
Fortunately, the upcoming Elron(tm) processor will take care of those pesky dead space-aliens once and for all.
Now if only the Elron(tm) processor didn't cost $100,000, it'd be nice...
Who developed the Pentium?
;-)
A guy named Pentovski, a russian that came from Elbrus. Intel reigned the market several years.
Who developed the Athlon?
A guy, dunno his name, that came from the Alpha team. But of course it's the _whole team_ that matters... and didn't we hear rumors that a lot of good people were leaving Intel last year?
Indeed I have yet to see their first decent product this year
Elbrus rules!
Somebody fund these people and shake the CPU market!
I'm planning to make my next computer a G4 tower. I'll run Linux on it, of course :) Modern Macs now have an easy-to-open case, so they obviously aren't trying to make it hard to upgrade! They have a PCI bus, so you can just throw any card in and have it work. (and work correctly, becauseISA PnP is where the praying happens, PCI PnP seems to work well. I'm sick of running a computer that is backwards compatible with an 8086, which wasn't designed with scalability in mind!
BTW, anyone know where I can buy nice G4 system without a load of multi-media stuff? I just want a mobo, processor, and RAM, and maybe a new hard drive. It would be extremely cool if anyone could point me to a place where I could get a decent SMP G4 system for a decent price. (BTW, I'm in Canada)
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
A consumer sees "Celeron" and "Spitfire" chips and they sound competitive--remember that AMD needs John Q. Public to buy the chip, not just Slashdotters who know what they're buying beyond name. But, an average joe sees "Celeron" versus "Duron," and it's fairly obvious which one sounds better. Guys want fast, not just durable, and impressions count in selling any product.
I dunno, but when I hear "Celeron" I think of our favorite water based vegetable, then I think about that vegetable on a motherboard, and the water leaking out and shorting my board, then I just get mad, intel is trying to ruin my hardware! Damn intel! Damn you to hell!
-- iCEBaLM
It's true! Durex Avanti condoms are made of it. Look here to find out about them.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
> The problem is that I have been betrayed by so called "hardware
:)
> companies" and have been given crap. If intel made things backwards
> compatable with adapter modules or something I could really make this
> puppy scream.
uh huh. Right. You do realize that memory bandwidth is a very important limitation, don't you? You have no choice but to upgrade the motherboard to get a faster system bus and memory controllers. You don't seriously think it's possible to make an adapter that lets you slap even 66MHz EDO RAM into an old 386 with 32pin SIMM slots, do you? Or to plug a K6-3@400MHz through an adapter into you 386 mobo, and have it do more than crawl? Even one really old component will drag the whole system down, be it RAM, vid card, disk, or (to a lesser extent) CPU. (A slow CPU can still throw the bytes around reasonably well, but waiting for a slow hard drive is _slow_)
At least you have the good sense to run Debian
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
I've got a P200MMX, which I got ~2.5 years ago. It still runs great, especially after getting a new HD which gives me 14MB/s sequential read with UDMA :) Including some NICs, that's 300$ Canadian that I've spent on the machine in 2.5 years. I'm not using relatively old hardware on purpose because it is old, I'm just using it until I feel it is worth my money to upgrade. I can understand you being happy with your machine, but I don't understand the fact that you seem to think upgrading would be bad, even if it were free! (Hint for low memory/slow X window system usage: try wm2 (apt-get install wm2) ~50kB of data+text, rest of RSS is shared library code. I don't use it, since I don't need to be quite that minimal, but it comes in handy :).
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
Damn, I get confused by all these different connections for CPUs. I'm still using a K6-2/300 so I've probably missed about 5 different slots and sockets already. :-)
But what's the story with Socket A? Is that an existing thing or a new, not yet available, thing? I'm guessing new, since I couldn't find any reference to it anywhere on any of the tech sites I searched..
They made a song about this chip in the 60s...
:)
Da Duron-ron-ron Da Duron-ron...
My journal has hot
http://www.spitfire-museum.com/pictures/
And here
http://www.netcentral.co.uk/steveb/spitfire/servic e.htm
Your wallet stays open. Our source remains closed. We are MSFT
Spitfire is the name of a british WWII era airplane.
I too dislike the name Duron, it rhymes with moron. and celeron... "sell and run" it sounds so cheap...
Zetetic
Seeking; proceeding by inquiry.
Elench
A specious but fallacious argument; a sophism.
I sware I have heard of these dudes before -- were they not big in the 80s? www.duran-duran.net ?
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Actually, the word association I bring up with "Spitfire" is "WWII fighter plane." I suppose the effect is about the same, though. :-)
In any case, "Spitfire" would've been a kick-ass name...much better than "Duron." Then again, I still call Athlons K7s and Pentiums P5s.
(I guess this means we won't see a "K9" from AMD anytime in the future...too bad, as they could have sold it as "a hacker's best friend." :-) )
Given how close "Celeron" sounds to a particular stringy green vegetable, it's a wonder it has sold in the numbers it has sold.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
*nt*
Duron: okay, so they had to use a goofy name that they could easily get the domain for.
www.duron.com is a house paint manufacturer. D'oh! Why did they pick a name they couldn't even get the domain for?
Has intel already grabbed all the goofy made-up words?
Duron son of Athlon.
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
How about "Duren", meaning bad, evil, nasty, ugly, etc. I personally like "durman" meaning drug/narcotic, but that's a little further removed.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
-cwk.
I wonder if the people at AMD did that intentionally, as a geek-effect. :) Hey, everyone loves LotR, right?
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Anyone have links to verify whether these will support 2 way SMP? Any motherboards that will work with 2 of these? If so I want 2. And cheaper than a PIII! woo hoo.
Did anyone ever realize that Duron and Durok are relativly the same. Duron, rymes with moron Durok, Is russian for "Stupid" Actually, if we are considering the celeron 2 little 2 late then why is amd going to the low end market. I dont even like the celeron, and with AMD having a celeron competitor, its just not going to go over. I honestly believe that this was AMD's mistake, and that they are going to have a tough time with marketing...
"If a man watches 3 football games in a row he should be declared leagaly dead" - A
Reading down the posts, I looked for it. I didn't see it,. so I'll just go ahead and say it...
If I get these new AMD chips,..
and run it on a dual CPU board,..
Would it be called "Duron Duron"?
Just asking ?
MP
My studio - www.graylands.ca
Unfortunately, ever since installing JunkBuster, I've been unable to see a lot of banner ads. Must be a bug in the software.
Totally offtopic, but this popped the Galen character from Crusade into my mind:
Galen (in swedish) = nuts, idiot, crazy person
Once you know that, you just can't take that character seriously anymore...
I just hope there will be Slot A -> Socket A adapters for these things too, like there is for Slot 1 -> PPGA/FCPGA so this won't go to this crazy "upgrade your motherboard every two weeks" thing...
Interesting - dúr means "stupid" in Irish as well.
In Welsh, "duron" is the last five letters of the word for "dictionary". But that's a bit more tenuous I suppose.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Definitely not off topic. 386 is a very important number, especially as it relates to this article.
sup
LOL!!! Oh my god, excellent Douglas Adams tie-in! For those of you who didn't get this, I am truly sorry. *grin*
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Wow, that was a really great post!!! I think you should write a feature for Slashdot sometime =)
Down here in the South, there's a big paint manufactor named Duron. I'm fairly certain they have trademarks on Duron stuff.
Does anybody know anything about this? Makes me wonder if we'll be seeing AMD sued, or quick backpedaling by their legal advisors.
-AU
Thanks for posting this, I've been confused on the cache implementation for Duron, and Thunderbird for a while thinking the standard was going to be 256k L2 for Duron, and 512k L2 for T-bird. But I had no idea of the cache being unique from each other. At least this way L2 isnt L1's bitch so to speak. Now I hope they dont go blocking out SMP for Durons...........hopefully.
AMD MUST update it's website and make it more attractive and start a vigorious [not boring] advertising campaign on TV and magazines that will cripple Intel. Also please rename the K62+/K63+ to something more cutting edge. That's just boring. Duron is boring also. You should have kept with Spitfire because people don't find find the same appeal in proccessors as in batteries.
AMD is NOT taking advantage of it's situation. If you have an awesome technology like the Athalon, I say go all out and stop half-hearted marketing. Bad AMD bad! It's also time to meet demand by building a few more chip factories.
Take advantage now or be eliminated later...