AMD Athlon XP 2000+, A Virtual Milestone!

Author : Wayne Date : 7th January 2002

3DVelocity would like to thank AMD and especially Theresa Zimmer for their help and courtesy in providing this processor for review.

 

 

Overclocking :

For the honest and trusting amongst you, I didn't really have time to mess about with unlocking the L1 bridges to find this CPU's real limit, and for those of you who don't buy that....I wussed out of taking a tube of superglue and conductive paint to £300's worth of processor. What I'm getting at here is that in the end I simply decided to adjust the fsb and see how far it would let me push, topping out at around 144MHz, that's 1800MHz in real money. I'd say that's a pretty fair result all things considered and with a lowered multiplier that should give some nice performance results. As soon as the novelty wears off no doubt I'll unlock the bridges and post a nice update telling you all what it was finally able to do and post a few benchies to go with it.

Conclusion :

The king is dead, long live the king! AMD have another winner on their hands with the XP2000+, though for how long remains to be seen. Reviews are starting to appear looking at Intel's Northwood 2.0 and 2.2GHz offerings, and while early reports seem a little disappointing, it's still a damned fast chip. I could bitch about the price of the XP2000+, but if you take a flick through Intel's price list, then remind yourself this is a brand new speed grade the price suddenly looks incredibly good. I could moan that an increase of 70MHz hardly warrants the release of a new processor, but with the Palomino's high IPC it does to some degree. I could complain I got a brown one instead of a green one, but as I really want a red one that's pointless. I could moan that this review is a day late because AMD told me the NDA lifted on the 9th of January not the 7th, but I'll use that mistake to blackmail them for something at a later date.

Should you upgrade? well, that's between you, your wallet and your desire for a better rank at MadOnion. If you're running an 1800+ or 1900+ right now chances are you could clock it the same speed as the 2000+ with little effort, but you wouldn't actually own a 2000+, and that's what it's all about really isn't it? The need for speed, the desire to have the latest and greatest that money can buy, and I have no hesitation in proclaiming the Athlon XP2000+ to be the latest and greatest that money can buy.........period!

Please feel free to comment on this review over at our forums, and thanks for reading.