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Introduction:::...
Minnows, underdogs, little fish in a
big pond, dreamers, followers, oh sure, AMD have heard
it all, yet somehow this inconsequential little company
from the back of beyond has taken the processor industry
and shaken it to its core. With less capital and less
resources than their main rivals, Advanced Micro Devices
have followed their vision and stuck to their guns
in bringing the world the first Windows compatible
64 bit processor with a fully functional 32 bit capability
to boot!
Alongside the much lauded 3200+ and
the 3000+ that AMD silently snuck in the back door,
this is how the current Athlon 64 lineup pans out:
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CPU
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Operating Frequency
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Cache
Size
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3400+
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2.2GHz
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1024k
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3200+
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2.0GHz
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1024k
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3000+
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2.0GHz
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512k
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The Athlon 64 brought with it several new technologies
including the ability to handle SSE2 alongside the
already implemented SSE and 3DNow! Professional.
With twice the processor registers available the
Athlon 64 can also now address massively more memory
than was previously the case. The integrated onboard
memory controller also enables up to 3.2 GB/s of memory
bandwidth and supports PC3200, PC2700, PC2100 or PC1600
DDR.
It may represent only a 10% increase
in clock speed but what does that translate to in
real terms? Let's take a quick look:
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