Athlon XP

kcbass

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2001
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I've been away from the forums and from hardware itself for a while now. Last time I was here, my Athlon 1.2 GHz was pretty much top of the line. Now they've got these Athlon xp's, but I've noticed that they're not much faster than the t-birds, and they run at the same 266 fsb. So what's so much better about them? I don't even pretend to understand chip architechture, but I do understand that there's a lot to improve upon, so just what have they improved upon?
 

Locutus4657

Senior member
Oct 9, 2001
209
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Not much faster than the T-Bird? LOL!



<< I've been away from the forums and from hardware itself for a while now. Last time I was here, my Athlon 1.2 GHz was pretty much top of the line. Now they've got these Athlon xp's, but I've noticed that they're not much faster than the t-birds, and they run at the same 266 fsb. So what's so much better about them? I don't even pretend to understand chip architechture, but I do understand that there's a lot to improve upon, so just what have they improved upon? >>

 

JeremiahTheGreat

Senior member
Oct 19, 2001
552
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@ the same speed, the difference between the Xp and T-bird is barely noticable on non-sse optimised programs. WIth SSE programs, the XP leaves the T-bird far behind..

The XP processors have data prefetch or something, a redeign of its layout to reduce power consumption or something, and 3DNow! Professional or SSE or something :)
 

Locutus4657

Senior member
Oct 9, 2001
209
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That's not really true, pre-fetching really helps out in the vast majority of situations. So much so that it's interesting to note that AMD's new "PR" system compares the preformace of the Plamano (sp?) core to the T-Bird core, not Athlon to P4.



<< @ the same speed, the difference between the Xp and T-bird is barely noticable on non-sse optimised programs. WIth SSE programs, the XP leaves the T-bird far behind..

The XP processors have data prefetch or something, a redeign of its layout to reduce power consumption or something, and 3DNow! Professional or SSE or something :)
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