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AthlonXP Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the released dept.

ldopa1 writes "True to form, AMD has released the new Athlon XP today. This article on Tom's Hardware has the full technical specs for the chip as well as a look at the new packaging. Tom's also has a full set of benchmarks for the chip." michael : See also reviews on LinuxHardware.org, Newsforge, AnandTech and AMDMB. Update: 10/09 20:29 GMT by T : gregfortune points out that AMD is giving away quite a few of these in a six-city promotion as well, so if you live in one of the six, perhaps you can snag one.

20 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. will the trickery work? by kvandivo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The question, though, is will their tricky ways work? Cyrix tried the exact same thing a few years back (marking a chip with a model number that represented the 'approximate intel performance' rather than the chip speed itself. Is AMD going to be able to pull this one off, or is it destined to go the same way as the Cyrix chip?

    --
    http://www.WinWithRealEstate.com/
    1. Re:will the trickery work? by Sir_Real · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well... The Cyrix chips didn't do well, but it wasn't because of their shady marketing, it was because the Cyrix chips absolutely sucked... (This is MHO, after owning one... I hated the damned thing...)

      Donning Asbestos Jumpsuit...

    2. Re:will the trickery work? by silicon_synapse · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's also worth noting that this is only a temporary solution. I believe AMD is working on a completely new rating system to be adopted in 2002. It should completely abandon MHz measurements and evaluate performance more effectively. Whether or not the industry will cooperate is yet to be seen.

    3. Re:will the trickery work? by Telek · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Silly silly question time:

      You have 2 competetors, really. The underdawg is going to try to make a new rating system that they hope to get everyone to use to bring back "fairness" to the processor rating game, but when your only real competetor is the one who is going to loose bigtime by using this new system (and therefore they will not), then how do you expect this new rating system to work?

      I think what would be better is for now to drop this silly "we're as good as that P4, swear it!" scheme and just call it something else. Call it the AthlonXP G+ or 6P+ or something. That way there is no realative comparison, and when you go to the store to ask "hey, which is better here?" the guy can just tell you "Go with the AMD such and such, because it's as good as this P4 over here", not only does it stay up to date with comparisons, but you also don't get accused of trickery.

      --

      If God gave us curiosity
  2. Good CPU in spite of AMD marketing by MtViewGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think in spite of AMD's awkward marketing plan for the Athlon XP CPU's, you have to admit they are impressively fast.

    Both Anandtech and Tom's Hardware show the Athlon XP 1800+ to have pure-CPU performance that exceeds that for the Pentium 4 2,000 MHz CPU (with the exception of any program that takes full advantage of SSE2 instructions, which are still quite rare). This is a tribute to the fact that the Athlon CPU core itself is very fast, particularly the FPU unit.

    Once people realize the Athlon XP's excellent performance I think the new CPU will be a good seller.

  3. MP? by [amorphis] · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From reading the various reviews, the Athlon XP doesn't seem to have SMP capability.

    Are the Athlon XP and Athlon MP essentially two lines now? It sucks to see AMD succumb to marketing in order to combat Intel.

  4. A chip by any other name... by Domini · · Score: 3, Interesting

    .. would still run as sweet.

    Aparently that are following suit, with NVidia and their DetonatorXP drivers, everyone seems to be trying to get onto the WinXP hype.

    They seem to call it Extended Performance (isn't that AthlonEP then?), and sure it has 3-7% more bang for clock than the TB line.

    My only question is this, since AMDs are so popular in the linux comunity, what will the change in name do to that support? I for one don't care... :)

    Any thoughts on the name's impact?

    Anyone know what happened to UserFriendly?

    1. Re:A chip by any other name... by tshak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How can this be fraud? It's like selling an Audi A4 and calling it an "A4 150hp" and comparing it to a "Honda Accord 150hp". Now, anybody who knows anything about cars knows that the Audi A4 will easily outperform the Honda even though they both output 150hp. The same goes for the Athlon 1.53ghz... these chips are becoming less and less dependant on clock cycles for performance. Especially when you look at the real world benchmarks - The Athlon 1800+ (1.53ghz) is outperforming the P4 2.0ghz in the vast majority of suites. However, the consumer will be comparing the 1800+ to the P4 1.8ghz, which simply get's crushed by the 1800+. I don't see how this is in any way the least bit misleading.

      --

      There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
    2. Re:A chip by any other name... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      Anyone know what happened to UserFriendly?


      Sure, Iliad started believing his own press, sold out, and expanded beyond his ability to produce good product. So he had to add more and more stuff to increase the perceived value of "the UFie community", which resulted in a dilution of the quality of the strip until it was a shadow of its former self.


      Let's just hope this doesn't happen to PvP.

  5. Athlon "XP"? by Kreeblah · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Erm, this is getting frightening. First we had nice, normal products. 80286. Windows 3.0. DOS 6.2. Simple to note differences, no? Then we had products which were easier to copyright the names of. Pentium. K6. Windows 95 (OK, that wasn't really for copyright; that was just for misleading people). Now we're seeing a return to the old days, except without the clarity. Office XP. Windows XP. Athlon XP. See, now companies appear to be marching in lockstep. Have the same name, and confuse the customer. I can hardly wait for the "Pentium XP" . . .

  6. Subliminal story by BigJim.fr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Am I dreaming or a story appeared on the front page and had disappeared a few seconds later when I reloaded ?

  7. Now what? by cr@ckwhore · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ok... so, now I apparently have to stop using AMD processors after my athlon 1.4, because I won't be able to determine the true mHz that my processor is running. I don't necessarily see the reasons why this rating is masked on the XP processors... its probably ok for the average home user, but I'm not average. MhZ ratings mean something to me, because I enjoy tweaking the most from my system.

    I stopped using Intel processors a while ago, after learning that AMD's chip architecture was superior to Intel's, the choice was obvious. If you haven't read this document, please do. It'll give you a good technical understanding of performance issues with Pentium processors compared to AMD processors.

    So, now what? I guess I'm forced into some hard choices over the specs of my next machine. It may be time to consider Intel again... I just don't know. AMD's new CPU scheme sounds really sketchy to me.

    --
    Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
    1. Re:Now what? by cr@ckwhore · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Excerpt from the article:

      AMD Motherboards will not pass AMD validation or be posted on the AMD recommended motherboard website if the frequency is displayed by the BIOS during bootup for AMD Athlon(tm) Model 6 desktop and multiprocessing processors.

      It'll be interesting to see how many companies release "un-approved" motherboards for the processors, and how many computer geeks buy them. I know I would.

      I don't agree with the arguement that the MhZ rating is arbitrary. Its not... there is a direct correlation between mHz and clock cycles. Clock cycles mean something to some talented computer users. By masking the mHz rating, it only obfuscates the technical aspect of the chip. Their silly rating does NOT take that away, because the chip still runs on a clock.

      --
      Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
  8. The P4 needs a PR rating... by (H)elix1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The most irritating thing about AMD switching to a PR rating is most folks miss the fact that mhz vs mhz, the Pentium III blows the Pentium 4 out of the water. It all comes down to what gets used as a normal - using a P3 as the mHz reference point, you get the AMD chip wiping the P3, and the P3 owning the P4. The P4 could use a PR rating as well...

    Intel can't make it faster, but we can increase the number of cycles... can marketing do anything with that? Intel killed the PIII because the last thing they wanted was for someone to take a 1.5gHz chip and put the P3 & P4 side by side.

    Depending on how you tweak the benching and load things up, you will see strengths and weaknesses in each CPU. Priced the same, the AMD chips are a better deal for my development and gaming needs.

    --
    +++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
  9. Microsoft Does it.... by theAmazingTom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "1. Motherboards will not pass AMD validation or be posted on the AMD recommended motherboard Web site, if the frequency is displayed by the BIOS during bootup for AMD Athlon Model 6 decktop and multiproccesng processors."

    It's one thing to sell it as an 1800+ but I'd still like to know what the MHz is.

  10. Cyrix Junk Policy's by y86 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Whats the deal?!?! AMD will not support or endorse a mother board that displays the ACTUAL clock speed for the chip instead of some stupid model number. Look at TomsHardWare.com

    "The BIOS of a motherboard that is supposed to get approval from AMD is not allowed to display the actual clock frequency, but only the model number!"

    The only other company that tried this underhanded tactic was cyrix who sold their PR(Performance Rated Chips), they sold
    166s as Cyrix PR200s. AMD is trying the same thing now. Cyrix died. Please don't tell me AMD is to lazy to come up with a real CPU core that can hit 2GHZ like the P4. I've always routed for AMD but i can not endorse these shady tactics.

  11. Re:Model Numbers by Tumbleweed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is actually a pretty awful way to measure the performance of a CPU since it's _highly_ dependent on aspects of the motherboard. The German magazine c't did a test of the Athlon XP CPU recently and tested on two different motherboards (Gigabyte and Asus, I think) - the spec scores different wildly! Neither board tested used the VIA KT266A chipset, which is known to be the fastest (in some cases, by far) of the Athlon-supporting chipsets.

    So, that test proves to NOT be a test of CPU, but of the CPU/chipset/RAM/motherboard combination, which is hardly the same thing.

  12. 1999? by ozzmosis · · Score: 1, Interesting

    how come on this page it says © 1999 on the chip?

  13. Problem with marketing based on mhz by mcdade · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We know that marketing your product based on MHZ alone will kill it. This was seen right from the early days of the 386's. People looked at the generation of chip and the equivalent clock speed. Teck people would ignore this ask they knew real benchmarket would tell the truth.

    Look at recient times, you have a bigger gap in this problem. The G3's and G4's are clocked between 400mhz and 800mhz, but people are put off buying one cause they can get a PC with 1.2Ghz for cheaper. The G4 can be a faster chip with lower clockspeeds but people won't buy it cause all they see is 800mhz vs 1.2ghz. The bigger number in compters means it's better, everyone knows that!

    If AMD doesn't start PR rating their chips people won't buy them. They are slower and cheaper (in the mind of Joe Sixpack) so they must not be as good as an Intel.

  14. Re:Model Numbers by startled · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Even SPEC is too easy to manipulate, and too far from what most users do. The only real way to benchmark a processor is by testing it with what you do the most.

    For tech-savvy users that might actually notice the speed difference, this means we have to browse the benchmarks at Anandtech, etc., and it's usually pretty easy to find a benchmark for an app identical or similar to what you spend most of your time doing (i.e. Tribes 2).

    Of course, it's likely that none of us would notice the speed difference between a P4 2.0GHz or AMD 1800+ in whatever app we're using; and it's certain that a non-power user wouldn't. Which is fine, because the non-geek isn't going to read all the benchmarks.

    So what's a computer buyer to do? Simple-- buy from whoever's cheaper. Save yourself $200, and try not to worry too much about remembering if your box is 2% faster or 2% slower than the other one as you surf the web.