AMD Question....

[Surfhead]

I am looking to upgrade from my K6III 450 to a 1 GIG T-Bird. I was on a Spartantech's website looking for a processor, and I got very confused. What is the difference between an Athalon, and a Thunderbird? What's the difference between this chip they list: ATHLON K7 SLOT A THUNDERBIRD 1000MHZ (200Mhz BUS) 256K ON DIE FULL SPEED CACHE .18 MICRON OEM VERSION (Purchase a fan to extend the warranty to 1 year)
Part #: AMDSLOTTB-1000 for $279.00 and this one for $234??:THUNDERBIRD P1000MHZ SOCKET A (200Mhz BUS) 256K ON DIE FULL SPEED CACHE .18 MICRON BOXED VERSION COMES WITH FAN AND HEAT SINK 3 YEAR WARRANTY Part #: AMDSKTB1000BOX

Any Help?? I'm new to nuances of the high end AMD chips. Thanks

 

[Asssboy]

The only difference bewteen the slot a and the socket a is the way the cpu looks. socket A is a cube shaped cpu while the slot A is fit into a catridge (kind of like an n64 game). That is the only difference amd could give me. Also the slot a is the supposed new technology.
Asss

 

[GaryTcs]

Ok, assboy is wrong about which one is newer.

Socket A is the new form, and is the one to get. This will be a thunderbird athlon. It looks like an old socket 7 CPU. The improvement from the slot-a Athlon Classic was full speed cache.

Slot-A was the one that looks like a Pentium 2 (or game boy cartridge). There are some Thunderbirds in this form, but there will be little upgrade path if you choose this one.

 

[crash2much]

.....and watch your motherboard specs, some support Atlon processors, but not the enhanced cache(ie T-Birds)

 

[Dexion]

Ok, Lets get further in detail here.

The Slot A format was released almost 2 years ago with the original "Classic" Athlon, it has a PCB board with on board 512K cache 0.25 micron process with a cartridge. AMD generously released the new Athlon Thunderbird for people that owned these older SLOT A Athlon motherboards for a more fluent upgrade path. If you're a new buyer definately do not purchase this CPU format.

The Socket A was released most recently from AMD with the Athlon Thunderbird and the Duron that features on-die Cache as well as 0.18u. This processor is much smaller than its predecessor, with the traditional square socket CPU format(similar to the old Pentium Classics, MMXs and the new FC-PGA P3/Celeron). With this newer format theres also new motherboards that support these processors, currently in the market features both the KT133/KT133A and less popular AMD 760 chipset. Theses are the boards your interested in purchasing now, lean towards the KT133A for more upgradability in the future(since it supports 133MHz FSB(Palomino), 266DDR system BUS).
There are new chipsets on the horizon, with AMD's DDR platform that would use DDR SDRAM as well as Ali MAgik's DDR platform also using DDR SDRAM that would support the new Athlon Palomino Thunderbird. This newer version of the Thunderbird would run on 133mhz FSB rather than 100mhz FSB, of course enhancing performance.

 

[TYI]

Stick with Tbird there is no upgrade path for the regular Athlon.

 

[BaLLhAiR]

DEEEEEM, that price is the worst that i have ever seen for a 1GHz Tbird, go to www.pricewatch.com son,
there i got my 1Ghz TBird for $174. and they are still at that price

a tbird is socket a which is new school, while the asslon is slot a, old school tech..., and tbirds are much more stable then asslons


BaLLhAiR

 

[Surfhead]

OK... Well thanks for clearing that up. I really appreciate it. Now that the CPU question is settled, what's the best motherboard for for the 1 GIG, T-Bird Socket... Thanks.......