Duron and Athlon

I won't bother going into details of the early Athlon and Duron processors. They were great in their day, but they're getting to be rather long in the tooth. If there is a strong demand for more details on these processors, I will add them at a later point, but for now I simply recommend that you bite the bullet and upgrade.

For those interested in some historical information, here are a few more tidbits. The early Argon, Pluto and Orion Athlon chips had L2 cache chips contained within the Slot A cartridge. This cache could run at 1/2, 2/5, or 1/3 of the core clock speed - the faster the core, the lower the ratio. This led to situations where, for example, a 700 MHz Athlon with 350 MHz L2 would outperform the more expensive 750/300, or the 850/340 would beat the 900/300 due to the slower cache. Generally speaking, performance comparisons between the Athlon and Pentium III chips of the day were neck-and-neck affairs, with each side winning some benchmarks. Athlon had better x87 floating point performance, while Intel generally won out with features like MMX and SSE - at least in applications that were properly optimized.

The socket A processors switched to an integrated full-speed L2 cache, but the cache was half as large. The increased speed and reduced latencies, however, more than made up for the decrease in cache size. At this time, AMD was able to actually surpass Intel in raw performance for a period of time. The Athlon Thunderbird eventually reached 1.4 GHz, while the Pentium III tried for 1.13 GHz and failed. Later versions of the Pentium III dubbed Tualatin would eventually reach 1.4 GHz, but those only came after the introduction of the Pentium 4. Athlon during these times was the chip for gaming systems.

One other item worth noting is that all of the Athlon and Duron systems used the EV6 bus protocol acquired from DEC/Alpha. This was a double-pumped system bus, which improved performance relative to older buses like that used in P6 motherboards. The bus speeds listed in the charts are the base bus speed, which is then multiplied by the CPU multiplier to arrive at the final CPU speed. However, due to the double-pumping, many motherboards will list the bus speed as the doubled value. The actual performance increased gained from the doubling of the bandwidth is not as large as some might expect, but it probably accounts for somewhere between 5 to 15 percent of the total performance of the architecture, depending on the application.

The Athlon 64 and Opteron processors, meanwhile, have switched to a HyperTransport bus running at 800 MHz on the early chips and 1 GHz on socket 939 chips. The main benefit of the HT bus is that it doesn't require as many traces (wires), so it makes motherboard layouts somewhat easier to design. This also allows for multiple high-speed bus connections when used in SMP systems without resorting to designs with more layers.

Athlon XP and Sempron Processors

Athlon XP (Desktop) & Sempron (Desktop Value)
Athlon XP 1500+1333Palomino256133.310.0X
Athlon XP 1600+1400Palomino256133.310.5X
Athlon XP 1700+1467Palomino/TBA256133.311.0X
Athlon XP 1800+1533Palomino/TBA256133.311.5X
Sempron 2200+1500Thoroughbred B256166.79.0X
Athlon XP 1900+1600Palomino/TBA256133.312.0X
Athlon XP 2000+1667Palomino/TBA256133.312.5X
Athlon XP 2000+1667Thorton256133.312.5X
Athlon XP 2000+1533Barton512133.311.5X
Athlon XP 2100+1733Palomino/TBA256133.313.0X
Sempron 2400+1667Thoroughbred B256166.710.0X
Athlon XP 2200+1800TBA/TBB256133.313.5X
Athlon XP 2200+1800Thorton256133.313.5X
Sempron 2500+1750Thoroughbred B256166.710.5X
Athlon XP 2200+1667Barton512133.312.5X
Sempron 2600+1833Thoroughbred B256166.711.0X
Athlon XP 2400+2000Thoroughbred B256133.315.0X
Athlon XP 2400+2000Thorton256133.315.0X
Athlon XP 2400+1800Barton512133.313.5X
Athlon XP 2500+1867Barton512133.314.0X
Sempron 2800+2000Thoroughbred B256166.712.0X
Athlon XP 2600+2133Thoroughbred B256133.316.0X
Athlon XP 2500+1833Barton512166.711.0X
Athlon XP 2600+2083Thoroughbred B256166.712.5X
Athlon XP 2600+2000Barton512133.315.0X
Athlon XP 2600+1917Barton512166.711.5X
Athlon XP 2700+2167Thoroughbred B256166.713.0X
Athlon XP 2800+2250Thoroughbred B256166.713.5X
Athlon XP 2800+2083Barton512166.712.5X
Athlon XP 3000+2167Barton512166.713.0X
Athlon XP 3000+2100Barton51220010.5X
Athlon XP 3200+2200Barton51220011.0X
*** All system buses for Athlon XP, Sempron, Athlon 64, and Opteron are "double pumped", so their data rate is twice the bus speed. The multiplier is based off the listed speed.

Many of the processors listed in the charts were not commonly available, so they may not be well known. Some of these parts were shipped to OEMs who had special requirements, for example they might want to use cheaper PC2100 RAM with a Barton core. Some of the listed chips might also have been mobile parts which were mistakenly listed in the wrong table. However, the majority of these chips actually do exist in various PCs. Note also that some parts were likely to be seen more in overseas markets than in the US. If you are sure that a part is incorrect or doesn't exist, feel free to post a comment or send an email.

Athlon XP tweaked some of the finer details of the Athlon architecture to improve performance. Since XP was also going up against Pentium 4 instead of Pentium III, AMD (re)introduced model numbers and began their "clock speed isn't everything" campaign. According to AMD, the XP line was rated in terms of performance relative to the Thunderbird core, but few people actually believe that. It was almost surely market driven, as the Pentium 4 was scaling rapidly in clock speed, and the Athlon cores couldn't possibly keep up in raw MHz. And of course, AMD is correct that clock speed isn't everything - average instructions executed per clock (IPC) multiplied by clock speed would give you the real instruction throughput. Unfortunately, coming up with a precise measurement of IPC is virtually impossible - it varies depending on the code executed. Still, clock-for-clock, Athlons are definitely faster than P4 chips, and the PR ratings were relatively accurate, at least in the beginning.

As the "processor wars" continued, both companies released tweaked designs. Thoroughbred was a process shrink that brought higher clock speeds, but not as high as initially desired. A reworked Thoroughbred B core - which added an extra layer to the core, among other things - helped raise the clock limit a bit more and allowed Athlon XP to eventually reach 2250 MHz. Note that Thoroughbred B cores can often overclock to 2.3 to 2.4 GHz with sufficient cooling, while the A versions are often limited to ~2.1 GHz.

After Thoroughbred, AMD added more cache with the Barton core, and readjusted their model numbers accordingly, since more cache brought more performance. This was really where the model numbers started to become suspect, though, since Intel had also added more cache and increased bus speeds without "adjusting" any model numbers. The 2500+, 2600+ and 2800+ tended to struggle a bit in keeping up with their Intel counterparts, but the real problem came when Intel released the 200 MHz (800 FSB) "C" version of their Pentium 4. The jump to 3200+ with the 200 MHz FSB really only kept the Athlon XP competitive with the P4 2.8C in overall performance comparisons. Of course, here the model names were a stroke of genius, as many people simply assumed that a 3200+ really was the equivalent of the 3.2C.

Athlon XP-Mobile Processors

Athlon XP-M (Mobile)
Athlon XP-M 850850Palomino2561008.5X
Athlon XP-M 900900Palomino2561009.0X
Athlon XP-M 950950Palomino2561009.5X
Athlon XP-M 10001000Palomino25610010.0X
Athlon XP-M 11001100Palomino25610011.0X
Athlon XP-M 12001200Palomino25610012.0X
Athlon XP-M 1400+1200Thoroughbred256133.39.0X
Athlon XP-M 1500+1300Palomino25610013.0X
Athlon XP-M 1600+1400Palomino25610014.0X
Athlon XP-M 1500+1333Thoroughbred256133.310.0X
Athlon XP-M 1600+1400Thoroughbred256133.310.5X
Athlon XP-M 1700+1467Thoroughbred256133.311.0X
Athlon XP-M 1800+1533Thoroughbred256133.311.5X
Athlon XP-M 1900+1600Thoroughbred256133.312.0X
Athlon XP-M 1900+1467Barton512133.311.0X
Athlon XP-M 2000+1667Thoroughbred256133.312.5X
Athlon XP-M 2000+1533Barton512133.311.5X
Athlon XP-M 2100+1600Barton512133.312.0X
Athlon XP-M 2200+1800Thoroughbred256133.313.5X
Athlon XP-M 2200+1667Barton512133.312.5X
Athlon XP-M 2400+1800Barton512133.313.5X
Athlon XP-M 2500+1867Barton512133.314.0X
Athlon XP-M 2600+2000Barton512133.315.0X
Athlon XP-M 2800+2133Barton512133.316.0X
*** All system buses for Athlon XP, Sempron, Athlon 64, and Opteron are "double pumped", so their data rate is twice the bus speed. The multiplier is based off the listed speed.

There's not really a whole lot to say about the Mobile AMD processors. They are identical to their desktop counterparts, except they run on lower voltages and can run at reduced clock speeds to save power. Later on, the Athlon XP-M processors gained tremendous popularity due to their unlocked multipliers, which allowed them to overclock very well, as you could keep the bus speed close to the standard 200 MHz.

There are some OEM parts as well in the Mobile Athlon market which use a different socket than the standard 462 pin socket A. For the Athlon XP, there is a 563 pin version, and for Athlon 64 there is a 638 pin version. Further details and information on these parts is, at present, lacking.

Athlon 64 and Opteron Processors

Athlon 64 & "Performance" Sempron
Sempron 3100+1800Paris*2562009.0X754
Athlon 64 2800+1800Clawhammer5122009.0X754
Athlon 64 2800+1800Newcastle5122009.0X754
Athlon 64 3000+2000Clawhammer51220010.0X754
Athlon 64 3000+2000Newcastle51220010.0X754
Athlon 64 3200+2000Clawhammer102420010.0X754
Athlon 64 3200+2200Newcastle51220011.0X754
Athlon 64 3400+2200Clawhammer102420011.0X754
Athlon 64 3400+2400Newcastle51220012.0X754
Athlon 64 3500+2200Newcastle51220011.0X939
Athlon 64 3700+2400Clawhammer102420012.0X754
Athlon 64 FX-512200Sledgehammer102420011.0X940
Athlon 64 3700+2600Newcastle51220013.0X754
Athlon 64 3800+2400Newcastle51220012.0X939
Athlon 64 FX-532400Sledgehammer102420012.0X940
Athlon 64 FX-532400Sledgehammer102420012.0X939

Opteron**
Opteron x401400Sledgehammer10242007.0X
Opteron x421600Sledgehammer10242008.0X
Opteron x441800Sledgehammer10242009.0X
Opteron x462000Sledgehammer102420010.0X
Opteron x482200Sledgehammer102420011.0X
Opteron x502400Sledgehammer102420012.0X
* The Paris core does not support 64-bit computing. It is included with the Athlon 64 because of the socket and because the integrated memory controller puts it ahead of the Athlon XP in performance.
** All Opterons are available in 1xx, 2xx, and 8xx versions. x=1 is for single processor systems, x=2 is for up to dual processor systems, and x=8 is for up to octal processor systems.
*** All system buses for Athlon XP, Sempron, Athlon 64, and Opteron are "double pumped", so their data rate is twice the bus speed. The multiplier is based off the listed speed.

With the Athlon 64, as the name suggests AMD added support for 64-bit addresses and integers. This was done by widening their pathways and registers, but it wasn't a radical redesign of the core Athlon architecture. It has a pipeline that was increased to 12/17 stages, it got SSE2 support added, and the system bus was switched to a HyperTransport bus. The longer pipelines allow it to scale to somewhat higher clockspeeds, and the HyperTransport buses - there are three in the Opteron - allow for better SMP, but the core remains essentially the same. The addition of x86-64 support has garnered a lot of attention, but so far it's pretty much marketing hype. It has potential to improve performance once 64-bit support arrives, but that potential has not yet been realized in the mainstream market. The scientific and academic community, however, has greeted the introduction of affordable 64-bit processing with open arms. Most consumers, meanwhile, are stuck waiting for Windows XP-64.

The reason for the superior performance of the Athlon 64 - in current 32-bit code as well as in 64-bit code to a lesser extent - lies mostly with the integrated memory controller, which dramatically reduces memory latencies. In effect, it helps to turn system RAM into a very large but still relatively slow L3 cache. It also continues to reduce memory latencies as clock speeds increase. Memory latencies on the Athlon XP were roughly 81 ns at 3200+ speeds, and the P4 3.2C was around 77 ns latency. Meanwhile, the Athlon 64 3400+ comes in at an astonishingly low 48 ns. As mentioned before, those latency figures are getting somewhat close to L3 cache values - for example, the L3 cache in a 3.06 GHz Xeon is about 10 ns. It's still four times slower, but it's also twice as fast as RAM on a P4 system.

No better example of this can be found than the newly introduced Paris core, a.k.a. Sempron 3100+. At 1.8 GHz, it is substantially slower than the fastest Athlon XP in core speed, and yet in typical use it outperforms even the Athlon XP 3200+. This from a part that has half as much cache as the Barton and Newcastle cores! The only area where it fails to keep up is in tasks that generally fit within the L1/L2 cache of the CPU, i.e. certain encoding tasks. In that case, the lack of raw clockspeed is a hindrance.

Of course, reduced latency isn't the entire story of the Athlon 64. In 64-bit mode, the number of useable registers for both integer and floating point operations has been doubled. Depending on the code being run, this could potentially bring 10 to 20 percent more performance. Certain applications that make heavy use of 64-bit integers can also benefit from the added 64-bit support, for example cryptography and encoding tools. However, MMX and SSE have provided alternative means of improving 64-bit integer performance for many years now - they just require more programming effort to realize.

Introduction to CPU Guides Concerning Intel...
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  • TrogdorJW - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    No problem, Dave - I'm not offended by any means. It's "distributed research" as far as I'm concerned. It's SMP for writers (as long as they're computer geeks, at least).

    I of course have only personally dealt with a small fraction of the total number of CPUs, since I have never worked for AMD or Intel. I'm sure there are some employees from those two companies that could provide many missing details if they chose to do so. I have to be honest that I reached the point where I just wasn't seeing any mistakes or ommissions because I had been looking at the charts and data for far too long.

    At some point in the coming months, I may look at addressing some of the remaining gaps (i.e. no P3, P2, Duron, or early Athlon CPUs are listed). Until then, I'll simply work on updating the current charts.

    One final note: I'm amazed (shocked, even) that there hasn't even been one flame about my terrible Shakespeare parody in the introduction. I did it sort of as a joke, but when my wife looked at it, she groaned in pain. You can thank Kris for removing the Timbuk-3 quote from the conclusion. Hahaha... :D

    I've got a busy night (elsewhere), so you'll probably have to wait until after 1 AM PST before I get any real updates to the pages done.
  • KristopherKubicki - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    The mobile athlons are better refered to as Mobile Athlon 4,

    Kristopher
  • johnsonx - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    Jarred,

    I totally agree with your 'aside note'. I hope you didn't take my corrections/addendums as criticism of your effort; if there is to be a 'CPU Cheatsheet', it should be as correct as possible which takes outside input.

    BTW, I kept my comments to the desktop/server arena because notebooks often use otherwise unknown variants of chips. If mobile chips are included here, then they should be listed as such. For example, it is true that 133/266 FSB Bartons do exist as Mobile AthlonXP's (and the AthlonMP 2800+ as well), but not as regular AthlonXP's. I've seen other odd variants in notebooks; probably chips meant to satisfy a particular OEM's requirements (like I could swear I've seen a notebook with Mobile AthlonXP 1000+). Then of course if you get into Mobile AXP's, then you've got that tiny uPGA socket-563 to deal with as well. What a mess...

    Regarding the 512k Clawhammer vs. Newcastle: I've now gotten the impression that the original OEM 2800+ was (and maybe still is) a Clawhammer, while all the retail ones are Newcastle. My evidence for this theory is that all 3000+ chips are 2.0Ghz, 512k cache; the original ones were 512k Clawhammers and in retail carried the part number ADA3000BOX. The newer ones are Newcastles, and carry the retail part number ADA3000AXBOX. However, the retail 2800+, which came out well after the OEM 2800+, did and still does carry the part number ADA2800BOX. This leads me to conclude that AMD adds the 'AX' when they change cores in the same model number, and further that the retail 2800+ started with the Newcastle core, as the AX has not been added to denote a core change (since I think we all agree that the retail 2800's you can buy today are indeed Newcastles).

    Regards,

    Dave
  • silentsnow - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    #25, #26

    There is a general consensus that all 4AP and 4AR OPN's are 512K ClawHammers. All Rev CG 512KB Athlon's are therefore Newcastle based.
  • JarredWalton - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    The pipeline stages for Opteron and A64 are indeed 12/17 - that has been corrected, thanks! I had heard that before, but there were quite a few sites that listed it as 10/15 still. I'll have to wait on the other bits (slightly incorrect MHz ranges) until I have a bit more time to spare.

    25/26: Yes, there is a socket 754 Newcastle now. AMD is being a little unclear on a lot of the updates, but apparently they can switch the memory controller quite easily in the core, or else the original memory controller was fully capable of dual-channel support but they somehow just turned it off. Anyway, the original 2800+ and 3000+ chips that showed up were, in all likelihood, downgraded Claw Hammer cores.

    As an aside note, the power of the Internet is rather impressive. It took a whole lot of time (as I'm sure most of you are aware) to research all the data for this article. Of course, there are bound to be mistakes (as JohnsonX and others have pointed out), but the chance of finding those alone is slim to none. It's like writing a modern software application that doesn't have any bugs! Throw something out on the Internet, however, and with thousands of eyes looking at it, your mistakes are sure to be found. :)

    I'll work on verifying and correcting some of the more greivous errors/omissions in the coming day or two. Of course, I'm also working on that little GPU chart... just don't expect die sizes or transistor counts on the chips, as they're very difficult to find. (Not so much the transistor counts, though.)
  • NinjaPirate - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    On the Intel Cheat Sheet, the Coppermine Celerons are marked as SMP capable, but it is the Mendocino Celerons who are SMP capable. As far as I know, nobody could get Celeron II to run SMP. Anyway, it's a very good article.
  • AkumaX - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    4. There were no 133Mhz FSB AthlonXP Bartons.

    Note that my comments are confined to the desktop arena. The mobile arena tends to get alot more odd variants.

    hehe, trying to keep it to the desktop, i see

    also, the Sempron seems to come in Tbred B and Thorton, and the lowest Sempron i've seen is a 2200+ (1.5ghz @ 166mhz fsb)
  • wassup4u2 - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    I was under the impression that the K7 had a 10-stage int pipeline and a 15 stage fp pipeline, and the one of the changes worked in the K8 was an increase to 12/17 stages, effective starting with the first K8 chip, Sledge Hammer.
  • LocutusX - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    #25:

    "8. The 512k Clawhammer core was only sold at 2.0 and 2.2Ghz. The 1.8 and 2.4's were true Newcastles right from the start. (ok, this one I'm less than 100% sure of, but I think I'm correct)."

    You're 98% right, I believe. The 512k Claw was only sold @ 2.0ghz, and were the "defective" 3200's remarked as 3000+. These were the ones being reviewed around December/January. Most of the new 3000+'s being sold *today*, are of course "true Newcastle". -- AFAIK!

  • johnsonx - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link

    Perhaps these are ticky-tack, but if you want it to be correct:

    1. The AthlonXP Palomino was never sold at speeds below 1333Mhz (AthlonXP 1500+).

    2. The AthlonMP Palomino was never sold at speeds below 1200Mhz (AthlonMP 1200).

    3. The Thoroughbred 'A' core never reached a speed above 1833Mhz (AthlonXP 2200+). To break beyond that, AMD had to switch to the 'B' core.

    4. There were no 133Mhz FSB AthlonXP Bartons.

    5. The AthlonMP Barton had an FSB of 133, not 166. The only MP chipset, the AMD 760MP/MPX, can only do 133 FSB.

    6. The Thoroughbred 'B' core used for the Semprons is the exact same as those used for AthlonXP's, and thus has the same die size, 84mm^2.

    7. The Socket-939 AthlonFX is a ClawHammer, not a SledgeHammer. The 'Sledge' requires Registered memory and socket-940.

    8. The 512k Clawhammer core was only sold at 2.0 and 2.2Ghz. The 1.8 and 2.4's were true Newcastles right from the start. (ok, this one I'm less than 100% sure of, but I think I'm correct).

    9. You left out the Socket-754 variant of the NewCastle. The Newcastle core starts at 1.8Ghz (S754 2800+), and so far goes up to 2.4Ghz (S754-3400+ and S939-3800+).

    Note that my comments are confined to the desktop arena. The mobile arena tends to get alot more odd variants.

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