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AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Released

SpinnerBait writes "AMD took the wraps off their next speed bump with the Barton core, the Athlon XP 3200+. This CPU runs with a 400MHz Front Side Bus at 2.2GHz and is targeted at competing toe to toe with Intel's latest P4. The benchmarks and review over at HotHardware, look pretty good but Intel's 3GHz/800MHz FSB P4 variant seems to squeak past it here and there. Regardless, more of that "yin" to compete with Intel's "yang" was released today by AMD and consumers will benefit again from the competition."

21 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. It's also the last 32 bit Athlon. by Pop+n'+Fresh · · Score: 5, Informative
    "AMD took the wraps off their next speed bump with the Barton core, the Athlon XP 3200+."

    It's also going to be the LAST speed bump with the Barton core. AMD's next Athlon is going to be 64 bits:

    http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-1001106.html?tag =fd_lede1_hed

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    1. Re:It's also the last 32 bit Athlon. by ryszards · · Score: 4, Informative

      There will be other 32-bit Athlon's, 'Thorton' for one, a return to 256KB L2 when Athlon64 hits to turn the 32-bit range into the Athlon64's Duron equivalent.

      They might not get any faster, but there will be more.

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      - 'sup, G?
  2. Oh man...winter just ended... by MeanE · · Score: 5, Funny

    and I already had bought a space heater.

    1. Re:Oh man...winter just ended... by Schezar · · Score: 4, Funny

      You know, AMD procs don't have the heat problems they used to have. If they overheat your case, it's usually due to a poorly made case or some other factor. Like, say, a modern video card... -_-

      --
      GeekNights!
      Late Night Radio for Geeks!
  3. poor AMD by MacOS_Rules · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...compete with Intel's "yang"...

    Poor AMD, releasing a faster proc just because they feel...inadaquate...

    I bet they drive SUVs too. A shame, really.

    --
    If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business. -Thackeray, William
  4. Athlon rating system over-rated? by Imabug · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Based on what I've read of the 3200+ at Tom's Hardware and Tech Report, the CPU performance is good, just slightly better than the 3000+, but still gets trumped by the P4 3.0 and 3.06 CPUs. Both call into question the validity of AMD's CPU rating system, and judging from their benchmarks, rightly so. The 3200+ is also supposed to be more expensive than the P4s, which combined with the dissapointing performance may limit it's popularity.

    It will be interesting to see how the 3200+ performs when overclocked.

    --
    "For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me"
    1. Re:Athlon rating system over-rated? by Psiren · · Score: 4, Informative

      Both call into question the validity of AMD's CPU rating system

      Unofficially perhaps, but officially the comparison isn't to Intel chips, but to AMD's older Thunderbird processors. A 3200+ is supposed to give about the same performance a tbird would, if it was clocked to 3.2GHz.

    2. Re:Athlon rating system over-rated? by turgid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, say intel used a performance rating to compare the P4 to a PIII, and took the 1GHz PIII as the baseline. Since the Pentium 4 does a lot less per clock cycle than the PIII, they'd probably have to call their P IV 3.0GHz a "P IV 2300+" or something.

  5. Better benchmarks.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
  6. Finally! by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Excellent, now I will finally be able to upgrade the chip on my homemade iLoo.

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    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

  7. Re:System Recomendation by Surak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Gigabyte makes a nice 400 FSB board, the G7VAXP has on board 10/100 LAN and awesome audio with SPDIF support. Abit makes a similar board with gigabyte ethernet, I believe.

    Personally, I never buy a new chip when it first comes out. I always stay behind a generation or too, that's the sweet spot in terms of bang/$.

  8. Re:What if we really got 3.2GHz from AMD by gilesjuk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They use the marketing to show that their chips perform similar to Intel ones even though they're at a lower clock speed. Intel's P4 is designed to clock high and need to be clocked high as it can't do as much per cycle as the AMD.

    Imagine the situation where car buyers only looked at the CC of the engine to determine how fast it would go, the AMD car would be a 2 litre but the Intel car would be 2.8 or something. So buyers would choose the Intel. Except the Intel engine has 4 cylinders and the AMD has 6 etc...

  9. And it is brown! by leuk_he · · Score: 3, Informative


    HEXUS reckons a 200MHz front side bus can't hurt. here. There's a picture of a brown semiconductor, also known as the "brains of a computer".

    TOM'S HARDWARE has a controversial conclusion about the 3200+ and describes it as a "spineless paper tiger". It thinks the 3200+ is "much too aggressive" and it should be an XP2800+.


    SUDHIAN Some crazy looking geek at Sudhian (hi Joel), reckons that AMD is being a little coy with clock speeds while its PR speeds have rocketed skywards.


    FIRING SQUAD says AMD's odyssey for the performance crown has been a little more treacherous than Her Indoors, but welcomes the introduction of the 3200+ and the 400MHz bus.


    TECH REPORT says there's not much new to report about the 2.2GHz chip apart from the fact that it runs on a 400MHz front side bus. But it reckons that the release is timely. There's a picture of a brown semiconductor which appears to resemble the brains of a computer.


    LOST CIRCUITS contrasts the real brown brains of a computer with the hypothetical 3200+ brains of a computer it previewed a month or two ago.


    BIT-TECH reckons that AMD's finally released the processor that the 3000+ should have been, denies the site's too pro-Intel, and puts it through its paces. There's a picture of a brown chip which appears to be the brains of a computer.

    I stop whoring now, more to be found at amdzone

  10. Re:Overkill by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    well if you want comparisons....

    we just bought some Dell 2.2ghz P-4 laptops here to replace some aging and damaged laptops.. what they are replacing are P-III 800 laptops.

    All of them run W2K and the users are NOT feeling a speed difference. Yes some of the processor intensive apps are fast. the winstone tests show it's faster.. but word processing and internet does not get a speed increase.

    So in conclusion of my findings I also reccomend to EVERYONE to not upgrade their computer unless they absolutely have to. If you own a P-III that is 800mhz or higher, you will not see any difference unless you are a power user or a gamer.

    It's just silly to spend money for the sake of spending it. as soon as we get a magnitude of speed change that will be very noticable (read that as SCSI like hard drive speeds... IDE is too damn slow) it is a waste of time and money to upgrade like we did 2 years ago and earlier. there are no real performance and quality changes (except for downgrade in quality)

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    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  11. Re:System Recomendation by ilsie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Um, no. The Gigabyte G7VAXP may have a VIA KT400 northbridge on it, but it can not actually do 400 FSB with sync memory.

    The only motherboard currently on the market that officially (as in, official support) does 400 FSB is the Asus A7N8X rev 2.0, with Nvidia's NForce2 chipset.

  12. Realtime physics by mmol_6453 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One game: Software rendered Doom III. :)

    Well, that may not be practical, but consider this: Game interactivity could gain massive boost of any sort of fluid model was used; Watch all the windows in a building get blown out when some idiot throws a grenade. Another example would be mass-spring systems for solids. Ever want to take out a load-bearing wall in a building map? Or cause a cave-in?

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    What's this Submit thingy do?
  13. From the article... by fok · · Score: 5, Funny

    The AMD Athlon(TM) XP processor with performance-enhancing cache memory features 64K instruction and 64K data caches for a total of 128K L1 cache and 512K of integrated, on-chip L2 cache for a total of 640K of full-speed, on-chip cache.

    So... will I be able to run MS-DOS programs directly from the processor cache? ;D

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    \m/
  14. Wow by Wordsmith · · Score: 4, Funny

    "This CPU runs with a 400MHz Front Side Bus at 2.2GHz ..."

    Now -that's- overclocking.

  15. Re:What if we really got 3.2GHz from AMD by fmaxwell · · Score: 4, Informative

    Anyone who knows much about cars, knows piston displacement really doesn't mean shit, put it on a dyno and see how an engine really performs.

    How many engines have you built? I've built a few and I know that greater displacement on normally aspirated engines usually leads to higher torque at low RPMs. Low displacement usually equates to lower torque and that the only way to make lots of horsepower from low-displacement is to design the engine for high RPMs -- because horsepower = (torque[lb.-ft.] * RPM)/5250. That's why a 1 liter motorcycle engine can produce upwards of 140 horsepower but would be completely unsuitable for powering a sedan that does fine with a 140 horsepower, large-displacement engine.

  16. Re:Overkill by kardar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I upgraded a 750mhz Duron to a XP 1700+ ; same everything, just a different jumper for the front side bus.

    I could tell the difference, but mainly in things like how fast it does a seti work unit; with browsing and word processing, I agree, it's a little more difficult to tell. Big software applications open up a little faster, things compile faster, but web surfing and word processing, yes, it is hard to notice an obvious difference. It's nice to have a little extra power if you need it, though.

  17. Re:What if we really got 3.2GHz from AMD by fmaxwell · · Score: 3, Informative

    A 1.0L motorcycle engine would power a sedan just fine. Just make sure you gear it down low enough.

    Untrue. The area under the torque curve very much influences the driveability of an automobile engine. If you have a peaky engine, such a 1-liter motorcycle engine, the powerband is insufficiently narrow to be used in a car, regardless of gearing.

    Gearing the car down low will provide you adequate off-the-line performance, but what happens when you shift from first to second and your engine speed drops out of the peaky powerband? Answer: The engine bogs down.

    Want another example? An OS model airplane engine that displaces only 9.95 cubic centimeters produces 1.8 horsepower at 16,000 RPM. That's with .2hp of the maximum allowed for mopeds. But do you think that the 3.3 inch long model airplane engine could power a moped? Of course not. It has too narrow of a powerband.