AMD Athlon MP 1800+ Processor Review

Lars Olsen writes: "Amdmb.com has posted a review of the new AMD Athlon MP 1800+ processor -- a big speed jump for the dual Athlon processor family with the new processor running at 1.53GHz. There are also 1600+ and 1500+ Athlon MPs available as well right away at stores around the World. Dual AMD Goodness is now running just as fast as its desktop counterpart ! Here's a quote: 'Those of you who want to jump into the dual processing Athlon world will finally be able to do so with the knowledge that your processors are the top speed that the Athlon family has to offer. And for anyone who already has a Tyan Thunder or Tiger MP board and a pair of Athlon MP processors, you may just want to pop a couple of these new Athlon MP 1800+ CPUs in your system to boost performance.'" Some of the comments following yesterday's "dream system" article addressed dual-Athlon complications, so make sure you read before you buy.Update: 10/15 15:14 GMT by T : Check below for LinuxHardware.org's take on this chip, and Athlon MP systems in general as well.

Augustus writes "LinuxHardware.org takes a look at the Athlon MP platform under Linux and the newly released Athlon MP 1800+ is included. Covered in this article is not only the technology and performance of the AMD-760 MP chipset and the Tyan Thunder K7 motherboard but we also look at why anyone would consider a multi-processor system."

Comments

Twice the burned-out CPUs?

[Kozz]

If you read Tom's Hardware, you may have seen this fantastic article and brilliant video, which shockingly demonstrates how AMD vs Pentium chips cope with heat emergencies. Considering the disastrous results with so many of the AMD chips, I'd be hesitant to buy anything OTHER than a Pentium until AMD can conclusively show that their chips are "smart" when faced with heat emergencies (heatsink fan stops, heatsink falls off?)

Expensive heat death?

[hughk]

A couple of the 1800's would be real nice here on a Tyan Thunder board, however, doesn't AMD have a record of potential heat death vulnerability? I believe that article was even mentioned here, but I can't dig out the link.

Tom's Hardware notes that the AMDs can cook really fast and beyond the ability of the motherboard sensor to flag. I guess these have on-die sensors but these were noted as being fairly ropey as well.

Intel's P4 seemed to do quite well out of the test as the clock slows automatically as the die temperature increases (in effect the processor ignores the clocks until the temperature goes reasonable). This means that it will even run without a heatsink (but very slowly).

I just get very nervous about having high-end silicon that is vulnerable to a SPOF. It a heatsink detaches or the processor fan fails - blam. If the chassis fan fails, at least there is some chance of a shutdown, but those processor heatsinks make me uncomfortable. Yes, I know I can buy quality, but MTBF is just that, a fan can still fail early.

So I wait for AMD to get a bit more serious about thermal protection and stick with using cheaper processors as thermal fuses.

Keep it cool

[manon]

I hope they ship the processors with water cooling AND a backup cooler.
Don't want this baby to get without any fresh air... not if I don't want it to be a smoke generator ;)