I read a Via kt133-A review at www.viahardware.com and a Duron 600@840 at 140mhz fsb performs about 10% better in Quake 3 than a duron 850 at 100mhz fsb!! And this on a measly Geforce MX card. This means that a Thunderbird 1200 (150*8) would at least equal a DDR system in Q3!! It also means that at last Thunderbird will be able to surpass the p3 coppermine in games, without expensive DDR memory or mainboards.
It is also probable that a Thuderbird 1200mhz will benefit more from the higher fsb than a duron 600mhz does. Especially when paired with a Geforce GTS or Geforce Ultra. It also means that the p4's fiercest competitor just got a LOT cheaper!!
It might also mean that Via's DDR chipset may show some serious performance improvement over the AMD 760.
Much of thise is speculation but I love to speculate. So..
I have a friend working in a computer store. ALL Thunderbird 1ghz he tried runs at 1,2ghz with the right cooling.
With the latest Pricecuts a 1ghz Thunderbird will be around $250 here in Sweden.
250$ for cpu
125$ for mainboard
150$ for good pc150 memory
And voila!.. You have a system that offers 80-115% of the performance of a p4 1,5ghz which will cost you a WHOLE LOT MORE!!.. At least twice as much anyway.
The biggest question of all thought must be if DDR is obsolete before it's even released.
/patrik
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