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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.

6 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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...

  4. 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
  5. 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.

  6. 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.