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Are
you eXPerienced?
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Author : Martyn
Date : 9th October 2001
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3DVelocity would like to thank AMD
and especially Theresa Zimmer for their help and courtesy in
providing this processor for review.
Part
Five: More Key Features
The
next thing we notice is that the XP chips have kept the same
amount of cache its predecessor pioneered. Three hundred and
eighty four kilobytes of total cache seemed to work well with
the original Athlons thus it was little of a shock to see that
AMD left this number unchanged. The first Pentium Four chips
were only utilizing an eight K' level one cache (that's not
a mistake, it really says 8K!) This no doubt hindered their
performance but with Intel's first chips costing far too much
for the standard user, something had to be cut down.
AMD
have also added fifty two new instructions to its existing 3DNow!
technology and are now utilizing the name '3DNow! Pro' to illustrate
the relevant changes. One final aspect of the Athlon XP; AMD
have made the desision not to produce chips based on the older
200MHz front side bus. Instead, at the XP's launch the only
chips available will be based upon the newer 266MHz front side
bus. I'm wondering how long it will be before we see chips fully
compatible with the even newer standard 333MHz front side bus!
Not long I would strongly suggest....(check out the banner on
the bottom of the page for more info)
Part
Six: Wait a Minute...No MHz?
Like
it or loath it the relative ratings are here to stay. I would
anticipate many of you will have seen 'leaked details' of the
names already but here are the final, definitive figures.
--Athlon
XP--
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Model 'Number'
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Operating Frequency
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1800+
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1.53 GHz
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1700+
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1.47 GHz
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1600+
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1.40 GHz
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1500+
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1.33 GHz
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Here
is something you might wish to know about this new naming
policy: Despite appearances, the ratings are based upon AMD
CPU's NOT Intel's P4. The 1800+ refers to the frequency
at which a normal Athlon CPU would have to operate to match
the performance of the newer XP model. I'm unsure whether
this is common knowledge yet but I'm willing to suggest AMD
will not be rushing to correct people's initial assumptions
just yet.
The
XP processors will be marketed based upon these figures. Indeed,
we hear it's up to the discretion of the individual retailer
as to whether the actual frequency is disclosed at all.
Page
Four: Testing Part One
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