[Tfug] AMD Duron Or Thunderbird

[Harry McGregor]

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Ken wrote:

> correct me if im wrong, but as i understand it. An AMD Duron has no
> Level 2 cache, The thunderbird is better quality. but if you arent
> doing anything intense like playing Grand Theft Auto: 3 or other
> massive workloads, then go with the Duron and save yourself some
> bucks.

Well, here is your correction... The Duron has 128KB L1 Cache, and 64KB L2
cache.  The Thunderbird core is 128KB L1 and 256KB L2.  AMD chips use
exclusive caches, which means that they are fully additive (they don't
have to mirror L1 in L2, as the intel chips do...).

To further complicate things, the first version of the Duron is the Morgan
core, while the previus version was the spitfire core.  Spitfire was based
off of the Thunderbird Athlon core, while the Morgan core is based off of
the new Polomino core (Athlon XP).  This means that the Morgan core based
Durons (any duron >1GHz should be a Morgan core) have SSE support, and are
a little faster MHz per MHz than the spitfire core, and in some ways it
ties with the Thunderbird core.

If possible, I would recommend finding a 200MHz FSB Athlong Thunderbird
core.  You can normaly find them at www.newegg.com for a reasonable price.


		Harry

----  Harry McGregor ----
Resident TFUG hardware expert.

> For further reading:  http://www.athlonmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=44
>
> Kenneth Sterns
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Doug Sax
>   To: tfug@tfug.org
>   Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2002 9:43 PM
>   Subject: [Tfug] AMD Duron Or Thunderbird
>
>
>   Hi Guys and Gals,
>
>       Im looking to upgrade my CPU from 700 to 1300 and I found out that the A7V can hold up too a 1400 with a 200FSB. My question is would it be better to go with the Duron 1300 or a Thunderbird 1300? I don't know the difference between the two, (like cache wise) so your help would be appreciated. Thanks -
>
>
>
>                         Doug
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Harry McGregor, CEO, Co-Founder
Hmcgregor@osef.org, (520) 661-7875 (CELL)
Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org