AMD Athlon vs Duron

[Guest]

My motherboard can handle AMD Athlon 1200, I was told when buying it.

But know, when I want to upgrade from Athlon 900, I seems like there are no Athlon 1200 to buy, only Duron 1200, which seems like a choice with lesser capacity.

My questions:
1) Why is Athlon 1200 gone?
2) What's the benchmark differences between Athlon 1200 and Duron 1200
3) Will I even notice the difference between Athlon 900 and Duron 1200?

Thanks,
Blander

 

[Guest]

Athlon is the high end CPU, they are replaced by the AMD XP series. I don't think there is a big difference between 900 and 1200. Try overclock your 900.

 

[FatBurger]

1) Probably just out of stock. I still see them around.
2) Not great, especially when the Duron has SSE.
3) Depends on what you are doing. Are you just doing email? Then no. Are you rendering 3d objects? Then yes.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

 

[DSutcliffe]

What motherboard do you have?

Also, you can probably go to as high as an Athlon 1400 but the 1200 was the fastest available when you bought the mobo.

A BIOS revision should enable that ability.

Check out my rig:
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=3737" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=3737</A>

 

[kief]

I agree, you should be able to do more on that motherboard. In fact alot of those old boards can use the XP with a bios upgrade (not not all). If not you can find 1200s and 1400 still. This site has 1200s in stock right now:

http://www.newegg.com

For $101 including fedex shipping!

Jesus saves, but Mario scores!!!

 

[bront]

The big difference is the L2 cache size. The Duron has a smaller cache size, so tends to get bogged down easier in some Apps. Will a D1200 outpace an A900? In some instances it will, since it has a better core (Morgan), but the L2 cache will slow it down in other areas.

Does your MB support PC133 mem? If it does, it will probably be able to take an Athlon XP. That's a better price/performance solution, a 1600+ or 1700+

RAM Disk is not an instalation step.

 

[Matisaro]

1) its old and not supported anymore
2) if you unlock the duron and run it at 133fsb it is faster than the tbird clock for clock on average.
3) maybe, you should try running your 900 at 1000, it is a small oc and should work fine without changing your hsf.

"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
No Overclock+stock hsf=GOOD!

 

[Trumphent]

You can easily unlock the Duron FSB. Now, why doesn't Intel make a processor with an L2 Cache smaller than its L1? AMD does! If the Duron/Athlon had inclusive cache like the Intel cpu's they would really blow large colorful chunks. Since the AMD cpu cache is exclusive, you do not waste L2 by copying redundant L1 data into L2. AMD has a far more elegant solution than Intel. It does the same or more with less. For next to nothing, you can get a Duron and run up the FSB.