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Athlon History

M

Migroo

Diamond Member
I feel like a real n00b asking this. I have only really become interested in the Athlon line since I bought my Athlon XP, and I was curious as to the history of the chip.

Specifically I remember the:

Athlon
Athlon Thunderbird
Athlon XP (Palomino core)

Just curious as people call the Palomino core CPU the 'Athlon 4' -> What Athlon have I forgotten? What goes between the Athlon and the Athlon Thunderbird?

Thanks guys 🙂
 
There wasn't anything between the Classic Athlon and the tbird. There was different packaging for the tbird early on. Some of the very early tbirds were in a slot packaging much like the classic athlons were. I don't remember what speeds these came in though.

The only other athlon you left out is the MP. That is kind of parallel with the XP though.
 
Right thats how I thought. So it goes:

K6
K6-2
K6-III
Athlon Classic
Athlon Thunderbird
Athlon Palomino

Is this correct?

Edited the obvious mistake 😱
 
Athlon Classic -> TBird was integrated L2 cache.

You forgot about the Durons, they were released along with the first Socket A TBirds.
 
when you say classic athlon you are reffering to the K7 and the K75 cores
which are created with the .25 micron and .18 micron process respectably
all classic athlons do have 512kb of L2 cache and 128kb of on die L1 cache but due to
the nature of the cache (inclusive) you only end up being able to access 512kb of total cache
the cache also operates as a fraction of the clock speed of the processor ( ie: 1/2 2/5 1/3)
this was one of the disadvantages of the K7 cores and a reason for the great acceptance of the Thunderbird core,
which is created with the .18 micron process and has a superior
cache system 128kb L1 and 256kb L2 totalling 384kb of full speed on die cache
unlike the K7 cores the the L1 cache is not inclusive but exclusive and therefore available rather than being used to copy the first
128kb of the L2 also other cache and core modifications benefit the TB core
the Thunderbird core is considered superior by most
the intro of the Thunderbird core also marked the end of the slot A interface although some tb's were made in a slot a
package for backwards compatiblility they mostly signaled the move toward the socket A interface
The athlon Xp's use the palomino core and the Thoroughbred (T-bred) core
the palomino core is still using the .18 process but has a few modifications to the core notably SSE support and some hardware prefetch capabilities
as well as an ondie thermal diode which allows for more precise temperature measurements if your board supports it
the T-bred is merely a die shrink to .13 which results in a decrease in size price to produce and of course heat dissapation
which are all good things other than that the T-bred core is reported to have no other changes from the palomino and
will continue selling under the Athlon Xp name
all athlon XP's are made in the socket A (socket 462) interface
the barton core will come after the T-bred but details on what changes it may have (512kb cache) are still in the working and
will be adjusted by AMD as market dictates
the code named Hamer family of processors will debut in the fall of this year and will mark a new and unique core that will not be pin
compatible with the athlon series of processors
well hope this help
 
1. Athlon Classic (K7) on 0.25u die
2. Athlon Classic (K75) on 0.18u die
3. Athlon Tbird w/integrated L2 cache on-die
4. Athlon XP (desktop)/4 (laptop)
 
Thanks guys

Yeah I was familiar with the Palomino and T-bred cores (I'm looking forward to a Tbred 🙂) but I was just curious as to the Athlons history.

Where do the Durons come in? I know there is a 'Morgan' core somewhere, but what are the specs and how to they compare to their Athlon brothers?
 
There was the early athlons with off-chip cache. The cache was originally at full speed, then, as the Athlons reached 800MHz+, it ran at 2/5 the chip's clock I think. This was all on the .25 micron die btw. Then the switch to the t-bird brought about a .18 micron die and integrated, full-speed L2 cache. Then came the Palomino.
 


<< K6
K6-2
K6-III
Athlon Classic
Athlon Thunderbird
Athlon Palomino
 >>


What about the K6-2+ and K6-3+? Did those actually get released? Also, have people forgotten about a previous socket 7 CPU that AMD made, the K5 series? There were 75-100MHz versions running at clock speed, and 100-166 using PR ratings (yes, there were two "100MHz" CPUs that had different cores). Of course there were various older AMD CPUs, but those were based off Intel designs.
 
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