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Hardware

1.3GHz Duron Arrives 256

Posted by timothy from the schnell-und-gunstig dept.
zebadee writes: "Tom's Hardware has the news that AMD have released a 1.3GHz Duron to the "mainstream PC market" that has been optimised for use with WindowsXP. The article also asks 'why haven't AMD gone with the MHz doesn't equal performance as they have done with the new XP/MP chips, as it would be assumed the market for these will be consumers who don't generally look at benchmark figures?' More information can be found at the AMD website."
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1.3GHz Duron Arrives More

1.3GHz Duron Arrives

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  • ...any motherboards that can handle dual Durons? Also, assuming they exist, does Linux play nice with it?

  • What?! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ender-iii ( 161623 ) <adam@nulERDOSlriver.com minus math_god> on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:05PM (#2877470) Homepage
    Shouldn't the OS be optimised for the hardware? Not the hardware comprimised for the OS?

    • Re:What?! (Score:1, Troll)

      by bonzoesc ( 155812 )
      Ssh. We all know Microsoft sets the standards with their software. When you're big, you can force others to do what you want them to. It's a hell of a lot easier than good programming practices.
    • Well,you obviously haven't been looking at your "Designed for Windows 2000" sticker on all the OEM boxen. I mean, really, Dell's case screws are probably XP compliant. ugh.

    • Shouldn't the OS be optimised for the hardware? Not the hardware comprimised for the OS?

      Excellent question.

      So I'm wondering two things:

      • Why haven't hardware JVM's really taken off?
      • (Not knowing too much 'bout 'doze..) why hasn't anyone implemented the HAL in hardware to get Windows to go as fast as possible?
      • Actually a few of the arm processors have java extensions to run java byte code native. Check it out at
        http://www.arm.com/armtech/Jazelle_Tech?OpenDocu me nt

        Sun did implement the picoJava core, but the performance was not on par with java on an intel or sparc chip so it was discontinued.
    • "Optimized for Windows XP" has little to do with the performance and/or features of the chip. It has more to do with the "standard" PC that Microsoft and Intel require you to have to get the "Designed for..." logos on your computer system.

      The PC Design Checklist [microsoft.com] has a set of requirements that your hardware must meet in order to be certified for use with Windows XP. Basically, if you're a system manufacturer and want to pre-install Windows, you must follow these guidelines and use only parts that also meet the guidelines. AMD certified their products with Microsoft so that OEMs would be able to include them in PCs that have Windows pre-installed.

      Microsoft and Intel come out with new requirements every year for PCs to get the latest "Designed for..." label and to preinstall Windows. Some of the latest requirements are that PCs are not allowed to have ISA devices and that the PC must be at the desktop/login stage no more than 35 seconds after the power button is pressed. (See the link I posted above for full details.)

      It's not a conspiracy by Microsoft and Intel, or anything of that sort. It's the same thing that a lot of manufacturers go through to say that their products are "certified" for such-and-such uses. Note that you, as a PC manufacturer, are free to not certify your computer with Microsoft, but you lose the OEM discounts on Windows preinstalls if you do, and you lose the free advertising provided by Microsoft.

      This, overall, is a Good Thing -- otherwise, cheap manufacturers might still be trying to force-feed us ISA devices and no USB ports.
  • The answer to the question is pretty obvious: AMD doesn't feel the need to use their marketing ploy with their budget chips because they're clocked at about the same point as Intel's Celerons. AMD only wants to use the system in areas where they're behind, of course.

    I dig AMD. But I'm not a fan of their megahertz-doesn't-equal-performance marketing, because it just seems designed to mislead consumers. And we know most consumers are misled in the first place, but this doesn't strike me as an instance of two wrongs making a right.

    • Re:The Con (Score:2, Interesting)

      by filtersweep ( 415712 )
      Um... what about Apple? They've been playing the same "clock" game and still dominate the graphics arts scene- marketing ploy or not! Some times a hz is just a hz, sometimes it is not.

      Speaking of marketing ploys, Intel's gaffe with Rambus has pretty much shattered high end consumers' faith in the company... in several benchmarks, much slower P3s were blowing away the P4s... until the benchmarks were "optimized" (I ask you "how much software is actually *optimized* for any specific cpu?").

      I'm at the point where I won't believe ANYTHING. Of course you can make the argument at the lower end that the customer base may not be "enlightened" enough to see through marketing on either side of the fence, but AMDs reputation is light years beyond were it was two or three years ago- and that sells more chips then anything else- IMHO.
    • This is actually in instance where two wrongs does make a right. As stated elsewhere, AMD has been quite honest about what they are doing. However, we would probably all agree that their goal is to make people think oh.. 2000+ that must be like a 2000Mhz machine. And guess what, an XP 2000+ competes nicely in performance with a Northwood at 2000 Mhz. To allow people to assume that the clock of the Athlon being at 75% of the Pentium means it is only 75% the speed would be far more misleading. AMD has taken the first step here and hopefully as people come to understand that their chips are clocked below their model number we may finally do away with the Mhz == speed myth.


      On another issue, I believe the reason the Duron is labeled using a model number is that that particular scheme is being reserved for the XP core. My understanding is that Duron is not using that quite yet and so still uses the old labelling pattern.

  • My DirectTV emulation is gonna scream with this baby...anyone need an unused hard drive?

  • 1.3 GHz . . . Hmm . . . (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Guess that's about a "performance index" of about 2 GHz, right?

    ~~~

  • Any details on this optimisation for XP?
    Will it boost my linux?!
    Anyone?

  • AMD's Duron numbers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nathan Brazil ( 13299 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:08PM (#2877502) Homepage Journal
    Maybe AMD calls their Durons by their MHz value because they feel the performance numbers are reflected in the clock frequency. If the Duron at 1.3GHz runs as well as a Celeron at 1.3GHz then, they'd, in theory, call the Duron a "1300+" Duron, even though that's the same number as the clock frequency.

    Did you ever stop to think that maybe AMD is honest about their intentions with this numbering system?
    • Just like Cyrix felt that their performance numbers refelcted the actual performance of a comparable clock frequency.

      I think AMD might be honest in its intentions with the system, but I still think it's a mistake.

  • probably because it is meant to compete with the celeron and the PIII, neither of which have the artificially inflated clock speeds of the P4.
  • And the Celeron? For a few bucks more, one can get the Athlon XP or the Pentium 4.

    I just don't see buying a chip these days with old architecture, since the technology moves so fast these days.

  • Athlon/Duron Problems (Score:3, Informative)

    by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:09PM (#2877510) Homepage Journal
    Does this one fix the recently reported bug [slashdot.org] that affects AGP and memory pages larger than 4K?

    Does anyone have info on this?

  • I *like* MHz (Score:2, Insightful)

    by foo fighter ( 151863 )
    Hopefully this is a sign that AMD realizes the 1600+ crap was a mistake. All the "Intel Equivalent" numbers do is make AMD look like an Intel wannabe.

    And as an enthusiast, I like knowing the actual MHz. It's not like the MHz information isn't widespread on the Internet anyway. AMD might as well tell it like it is.
    • Well, actually I like GHz better ...

      (Or, being in the photonics business, THz!)

    • I like coffee (Score:5, Informative)

      by SpinyNorman ( 33776 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:26PM (#2877642)
      And as an enthusiast, I like knowing the actual MHz

      Why?

      If a 1.6 GHz (AMD) chip is faster than a 2.0 GHz (Intel) chip, then this seems to be a singularly useless number... if only had any meaning when the two companies had more similar architectures where the MHz figures were at least roughly comparable.

      Note, incidently that the original speed measure was MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second), but this was not MIPS of the CPU/computer in question, but rather MIPS normalized to a VAX 780 having 1 MIPS.

      How on earth we got to the point that people started to measure speed by MHz is beyond me. For the previous generation x86 CPUS it was admittedly semi-reasonable, but across architectures it was always useless.... Have you ever checked the clock speeds of the top SPECINT scores...
      • Have you been in a cave for the last two decades? In the days of the VAX, computers were marketed as systems. It made sense to benchmark a VAX 11/780 because it was a system, not a processor. You could take a benchmark and run it on any VAX 11/780 and you will get the same results. You had a DEC supplied compiler, a DEC supplied CPU, and a DEC supplied system.

        But in the last 20 years, the market has competely horizontalized. Intel & AMD make the chips, the software is Microsoft or Linux, and the system is made by Compaq, Dell, HP, IBM, or Gateway.

        So what sense does it make to supply a benchmark to market a single component in the system? AMD claims that their Athlon 2000+ is equivalent to a 2 GHz Pentium 4. What does this mean? Could I plug that Athlon into a motherboard with PC100 SDRAM, a crappy chipset, and an old compiler, and expect it to perform as well a 2 GHz Pentium 4 with dual-channel RDRAM, an expensive server chipset, and P4-optimized software? Of course not. AMD's processor benchmarks represent one _system_ configuration. They are meaningless (and misleading) across different systems.

        Furthermore, how does AMD recalibrate when their 'standard' changes? On some apps, Northwood is more than 50% faster _per_clock_ than Willamette, so does that mean AMD has to change their rating system? They haven't.

        Lastly, although it could conceivably be wise for AMD to use a peformance benchmark instead of clock frequency for marketing processors, it is clearly misleading for them to try to match those up to frequencies. If they were really noble, they'd come up with a completely different instead of trying to confuse customers.

        AMD has posted a net loss every quarter since the introduction of the performance rating system, and plans to continue losing money for the next several quarters. I don't think that's a coincidence. It seems that consumers aren't willing to support companies who are trying to mislead them.

    • Re:I *like* MHz (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )
      And as an enthusiast, I like knowing the actual MHz

      As an enthusiast, you should be able to find the MHz rating of your chip. Hrm, lets see .. on the 'net, on the box, in your BIOS. As an enthusiast, you arn't losing anything in their naming scheme. Are car enthusiasts fsck'd because the horse power rating of engines isn't included in the name of the model of the car?

      As an enthusiast, you should know how little the MHz rating has to do with the actual performance of the chip with respect to cross-brand comparisons. Joe Consumer still clings to Intel's carrot (Mhz = performance), so AMD is just trying to give everyone a dose of reality. I think it's funny how people feel that they're being mislead, when really, the clock stat is just being moved to 'specs' page of the chip .. it's removal from the name is simply so that Joe Consumer can't keep saying, "The latest P4 runs at Y Ghz, and the latest AMD runs at (Y - X) Ghz, so I'd better buy the Intel." Whether the strategy pays off in the long run (and I think it will, as the clock rating becomes more and more meaningless when discussing home/office computing) is not clear yet, but they are doing you and your friends more of a favour than a disservice.

    • Re:I *like* MHz (Score:3, Informative)

      by SEE ( 7681 )
      And as an enthusiast, I like knowing the actual MHz. It's not like the MHz information isn't widespread on the Internet anyway. AMD might as well tell it like it is.

      I've got a Best Buy ad here for three Compaq computers. In the "Processor" line of the table it says: "Intel Celeron 1.3GHz", "Athlon XP 1700+ QuantiSpeed Architecture operates at 1.47GHz", and "Pentium 4 1.8GHz".

      It clearly and openly states, in print as big as the Celeron GHz number, the Athlon QuantiSpeed number, and the Pentium 4 GHz, the actual GHz rating of the Athlon chip.

      How is that not telling as it is?

      • I've wondered about how the Celeron's fare against the low end Pentium 4 chips.

        Are not the Celeron's just the old P-III with different cache sizes? And didn't the old P-III at 1 GHz beat out the lower clocked Pentium 4 chips?

        So when the Best Buy customer sees 1.3 GHz Duron 1 GHz Celeron and 1.4 GHz Pentium 4, will he choose the highest clocked chip, because I think they can be had pretty cheaply now.

        In my town there's a small discount house that builds computer systems and advertises on one of those cheap little billboard signs that you see in front of honky-tonk bars and in seedier parts of town. They used to advertise Duron 800 MHz systems for some low price, but now they marquee the Pentium 4 at 1400 MHz as part of the cheap system.

        Has the Duron already lost out to the low end Pentium 4?

  • That this is the purpose of their new marketing scheme, using the 2000+, and the 1900+ to make consumers think that it is actually running at 2.0ghz, or 1.9ghz.

    Im quite pleased with my 1900+ running @ 1.6ghz.

  • So, how well does the Duron fare in a dual configuration? I'm considering an upgrade and I'd be interested to hear your experiences.

  • They should stick to convention in this case.
    one thing that makes me nervous though, the quote
    "optimized for Windows XP Home and Professional OSs".
    Could prove ugly in the not too distant future?

  • Am I the only one who doesn't understand... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Uttles ( 324447 ) <uttles@nOspam.gmail.com> on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:14PM (#2877559) Homepage Journal
    ... this guy's logic?

    I know I haven't griped about this in a while, but if AMD switched to its new "MHz doesn't equal performance" naming scheme for its higher end Athlons (where one would assume that the users probably look at benchmarks) why is it sticking with GHz for "mainstream PC" chips (where you would imagine that users are less likely to look at benchmarks)?

    Well, the reason they're naming their mainstream processors by clock rate is precisely because the users are less likely to look at benchmarks. The effect the clock rate has on the overall speed of a computer is minimal, but if you ask the everyday person, even your average best buy or gateway store worker, they'll tell you that high clock = fast. So, if you want people who don't know anything about benchmarks to buy your chip, just say it's got a high clock rate, and they'll think it's fast.
    • So, if you want people who don't know anything about benchmarks to buy your chip, just say it's got a high clock rate, and they'll think it's fast

      I think that the guy who wrote the article is assuming the 1.3Ghz AMD chip is similar to the XP/MP chips, in that it runs about as fast as Intel chips at higher clock frequencies. In other words, the 1.3Ghz AMD runs like a 1.7Ghz Intel, so why didn't they name this chip a Duron 1700?

      But in reality, maybe this chip performs just as fast as the Celeron 1.3Ghz, so they didn't bother?
  • Can someone PLEASE explain to me exactly what the differences between this, and, say, the Athlon (Tbird) 1.3GHz processor? *boggle*

    I'm not sure I understand exactly what the purpose for actually having multiple lines running with completely different yet comparible chips. Isn't it silly, 'spec considering the Durons where touted as being a lower cost alternative, yet shelf price for these buggers is actually *HIGHER* then the still in production 1.3 Athlon chips?

    • Re:Err, I dont get it.. (Score:2, Informative)

      by SaDan ( 81097 )
      It might have something to do with the Durons 1.0Ghz and above having the newer core, while the old 1.3Ghz T-Birds used the older core. There are a lot of applications where the 1.3Ghz Duron will smoke a 1.3Ghz T-Bird.

    • cache and FSB (Score:2, Informative)

      by n3r0.m4dski11z ( 447312 )
      The difference bewteen athlons and durons is the cache (im not sure how much) and the Front Side Bus, the athlons have 133x2 and the durons have 100x2. this makes a BIG difference. A duron will run ok but a athlon will always be faster. Answer your question?

      • Err, but the release states that it is capable of DDR memory. I wasnt aware that DDR memory worked on a 100 FSB. I DO seem to remember the memory Cache being much smaller, however. The reasoning behind this was originally to save money and make them cheaper, yet as I said earlier, they are now priced HIGHER then their Athlon counterparts..

    • Re:Err, I dont get it.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by cdipierr ( 4045 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @04:10PM (#2877928) Homepage
      These Durons are based on the Morgan core, which for all intents and purposes is the same as the Athlon XP processors, but /w less cache. This means you get SSE & instruction pre-fetch, like the XP, as well as lower power dissipation.

      The T-Birds are based on an older core that didn't have those enhancements, but did have more L2.

      So basically, given an equal clock speed, the rankings of the processors would be:

      Old Duron -> Athlon T-Bird -> New Duron (this article) -> Athlon XP

      The caveat is that in certain apps where L2 is the deciding factor, the T-Bird might be faster, but as a general rule, the core enhancements of the newer Durons (and XPs) outweigh the larger L2.
  • Here's the text of the very short article...

    1.3GHz AMD Duron Arrives

    A mere two weeks after releasing the Athlon XP 2000+, AMD today announced the 1.3GHz AMD Duron processor for the "mainstream PC market." AMD says the new Duron processor is optimized for Windows XP Home and Professional OSs and supports DDR memory. It'll be priced at $118 in 1,000-unit quantities. The 1.3GHz Duron has 192KB of total on-chip cache, a 200MHz front-side bus, a superscalar floating point unit with 3DNow! Professional technology, and hardware data pre-fetch. Durons are manufactured on AMD's 0.18 micron process. I know I haven't griped about this in a while, but if AMD switched to its new "MHz doesn't equal performance" naming scheme for its higher end Athlons (where one would assume that the users probably look at benchmarks) why is it sticking with GHz for "mainstream PC" chips (where you would imagine that users are less likely to look at benchmarks)?

  • Duron's go by MHz because... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Brian Stretch ( 5304 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:18PM (#2877586)
    Why haven't AMD gone with the MHz doesn't equal performance as they have done with the new XP/MP chips, as it would be assumed the market for these will be consumers who don't generally look at benchmark figures?

    Because the Duron competes against the P3-based Celeron, not the P4 that runs far slower clock-to-clock than its predecessor. If Intel hadn't deliberately designed the P4 for clock speed at the expense of performence, AMD would not have needed their True Performence Initiative.

    In this case, two wrongs DO make a right. At least AMD's "wrong" is just marketing fluff rather than deliberately misdesigned engineering.

  • MHz Doesn't Equal Performance (Score:5, Informative)

    by shyster ( 245228 ) <brackett@u[ ]edu ['fl.' in gap]> on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:23PM (#2877626) Homepage
    The reason AMD labels Durons in MHz/GHz, and Athlon XP's in PR (Performance Ratings, a la Cyrix) is that Duron's, Celeron's, and PIII's all are very similar architecture wise. Therefore, a Duron 1.1GHz is about equal to a Celeron 1.1GHz which is about equal to a PIII 1.1GHz (cache and FSB speeds notwithstanding.)

    Athlon's are being marketed against the PIV's however, and the PIV's have changed their architecture significantly. This has the effect of the PIV actually being slower at equivalent clock speeds. A PIII 2GHz would be faster, for most apps, than a PIV 2GHz. To counter this unfair MHz advantage, AMD came up with their PR numbers to show that Athlon XP's perfrom equivently to a higher rated PIV. Of course, once software is programmed to take advantage of the PIV's new architecture (rememebr when Pentium Pro's hit the scene?), I wonder if AMD will push those XP ratings down. =)

    • Size Doesn't Equal Performance (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The reason I tell chicks my dick is 10" (PR) long is that my dick is being marketed against those of Leroy and Stan. This has the effect of Leroy and Stan's dicks being less satisfying at equivalent lengths. 3" of my penis would be more satisfying, for most women, then a 10" Leroy penis. To counter this unfair length advantage, I came up with "PR" (Penis Ratio) numbers to show that my dick performs equivalently to a longer dock. Of course, once women learn to take advantage of Leroy's "architecture" (remember when John Holmes hit the scene?), I might have to push those ratings down.

      ~~~

    • The Duron _is_ the Athlon - albeit the earlier "T-Bird" version, and with half the cache.

      The biggest reason (IMHO) that AMD switched numbering systems once the Athlon XP hit the market is because for the time being, they can't keep up in raw clock speed. We all know that clock speed isn't the only thing in chip architecture (as Hannibal has highlighted so well over at Ars), cache and pipeline depth are also significant - and Athlon more than keeps up with the P4 as a result.

      At the low end, clock=clock for more direct comparison, and since the Celery is just a lobotomized P3, the Durons can be marketed against them at their actual clock speeds.

      Once AMD is building Athlons on a 0.13 micron process like Intel builds P4 chips, expect the Athlon clock speeds to catch up quickly and the XP "ratings" to conveniently vanish...
    • Hmm... I thought it was because the Duron's speed in Mhz was equal or better than Celerons, so for marketing reasons they would rather keep their numbers to show that they are higher.

      I'm sure if Celerons were running at 2Ghz now that AMD would do the same XP nonsense with their Durons.
    • Most people commenting on the subject, including you, seem to implicitly assume that comparing durons to something else to get a PR, that is not directly comparable to XP's PR, is acceptable. Yet I'm sure most of us would whine without end if they ever did this. PR numbers has to be consistent if they were to be applied to all product lines. In other words to use the tag of, say, a 1500+ rating, a Duron has to perform as well as 1133 MHz Athlon XP. Now, with some applications (very small data set, computing intensive) Duron can do that at 1133 MHz , while for some others (streaming data, low computing requirement) Duron needs at least 1500MHz, and with still others (data set size about 300kb, multiple iterations on whole set with random access) Duron cannot catch up XP even at much higher speeds. PR ratings when applied to XP-P4 comparison are already inconsistent across applications, trying to devise another number for Duron would make things a lot worse. Another thing is, if AMD tries to be conservative with PR ratings for Durons, the PR rating would be about the same as clock speed, which beats the purpose and may raise a lot of confusion ("What? A Duron 1600+ outperforms XP 1800+? I though they were budget chips!")
    • AMD came up with their PR numbers to show that Athlon XP's perfrom equivently to a higher rated PIV. Of course, once software is programmed to take advantage of the PIV's new architecture (rememebr when Pentium Pro's hit the scene?), I wonder if AMD will push those XP ratings down.

      Officially, AMD's "PR" ratings aren't a direct comparison to the P4's performance/clock speed. Of course, we all know that's EXACTLY why AMD uses the "PR" ratings, but AMD can't officially announce "Look, we have to justify the performance of our processors by comparing them directly with our biggest competitor." The official word (I've seen the document on the AMD website, but a few quick searches didn't bring it back up again just then) is that the ratings are actually supposed to signify the advantage of the AthlonXP over the Thunderbird-cored Athlon - a Thunderbird Athlon would have to be running at 1800MHz to perform at the same level as an AthlonXP 1800+ (which has a clock speed of 1.53GHz).

      As it is, the "PR" ratings have a lot of room anyway - an XP 2000+ still performs VERY well compared to a 2GHz P4 - so I don't think AMD will even feel the need to adjust their rating system.
  • if AMD switched to its new "MHz doesn't equal performance" naming scheme for its higher end Athlons (where one would assume that the users probably look at benchmarks) why is it sticking with GHz for "mainstream PC" chips (where you would imagine that users are less likely to look at benchmarks)?
    Doesn't this answer itself? Obviously the computer 'savvy' individuals that follow benchmarks are able to properly judge for themselves which computer is the best, or the best for them, and understand that Hz is not necessarily the yardstick to measure all computers against.

    However, any individual with rudimentary computer knowledge (say, one who watches ads on television, or has taken an 'intro to computing' course at highschool or college level)has been taught about Hz and that it does roughly determine how fast a computer operates, and gives them a basis for comparison (however weak).

    A good friend next door came over and asked me about Hz or MHz which they were teaching her about in her intro to computing class. Of course I told her that it's the speed at which the computer operates. She doesn't know anything about computers, so how am I supposed to educate her about all the other factors that affect performance such as bottlenecks, pipelining, cache, bus, etc.

    As soon as you get into a discussion such as that the computer jargon goes flying. AMD is left with the exact same problem to contend with. How are they supposed to claim that their computers are magically better than the competition's when the supposed benchmark for computers is their clock? Would the consumer even understand or care? They need a way to comparison shop, that's what consumers do, and MHz (now GHz) has become the basis for that comparison.

  • Shmuh. (Score:2)

    by Sj0 ( 472011 )
    The reason seems to be that nobody is comparing the Durons to P4s. If AMD started putting 1600+ on their Duron CPUs, it would look pretty bad when a 1.2MHZ Celeron caught up with it, just like Intel looks bad when the P4 isn't grossly more powerful than the Athlon, despite a several hundred megahertz gap in speed, and a few hundred dollar difference in price.

    as for the intel is wrong in marketing the p4 vs the AMD is wrong for marketing the Athlon 2000+ people, remember this: It's marketing. There is no good, no evil. Just trying to manipulate the public into buying your product. Such is Marketing.
  • According to the Inquirer, when the Duron starts using the Appaloosa chip (0.13 micron), it will then start using AMD's CPU nomenclature.

    http://www.theinquirer.net/20010201.htm

    http://www.theinquirer.net/20010203.htm

  • AMD performance ratings (Score:5, Informative)

    by MrResistor ( 120588 ) <peterahoff@@@gmail...com> on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:29PM (#2877651) Homepage
    The performance ratings AMD uses are based on the performance of the Pentium 4. The Duron isn't intended to compete with the Pentium 4, it's intended to compete with the Celeron. The Duron has maintained clock pace with it with little difficulty and so the performance rating would only cause confusion in the Duron's intended market.

    The Athlon, of course, is competing with the Pentioum 4 and is able to keep performance pace, but not clock pace. In that market clock speed causes confusion about actual performance, so the performance rating makes sense there.

    That's my best guess as to why they don't use the performance rating system on Durons.

    It could also be that AMD has no problem saying that the Duron achieves performance and clock parity with the Pentium 4. I haven't seen any benchmark comparisons between the Pentium 4 and the Duron, nor have I looked for them, but I have no problem believing that a 1.3GHz Duron qualifies for a 1300+ rating, or even a 1500+ rating. Giving it that rating, however, would place it in direct competition with hte Athlon. That maybe seems a little underhanded, but ask yourself what's more underhanded: limiting competition between your high- and low-end products through naming convention, or limiting it by intentionally crippling the low-end product?

  • Durons make a great budget cpu... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Daniel Wood ( 531906 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:41PM (#2877737) Homepage Journal
    Especially now, since the price of the XP processors are ever increasing. For less than $150 I can get a Duron 1200 and a very capable companion motherboard, the ECS K7S5A. For $65 after shipping from Newegg.com (No, I have no vested interests in Newegg, I just like their customer support and shipping), you get a solid performing, stable, compatable motherboard with built in Sound and Lan. Nothing to scoff at. It even has overclockability using such programs as CPUFSB. The Durons are a great family, I think I may go ahead and get one now :)
  • How do you optimize a chip for an operating system, anyway?

    • Re:"Optimized" for WinXP?? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by haruharaharu ( 443975 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:51PM (#2877803) Homepage

      do you optimize a chip for an operating system, anyway?

      You profile it and then make the commonly used code paths go faster.

      What probably actually happened is that AMD profiled a bunch of code and used it to optimize their CPU. since XP probably has similar code paths, you just don't mention that it's also optimized for the bulk of x86 code

      • Re:"Optimized" for WinXP?? (Score:5, Funny)

        by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:59PM (#2877856)
        I remember an old story (can't remember the source, so I'll paraphrase):

        One day, the makers of a processor for a particular computer system decided to be developers for a day, and do some profiling. They found a particular sequence of several instructions that was being executed quite often, and they figured they could speed up the entire system by adding an instruction to the CPU that carried out that particular operation in fewer clock cycles.

        They did their redesign, and tested the new system. There was no speedup.

        They had optimized the operating system's idle loop.

  • Yes another one of these posts, it has nothing to do with the hardware!

    But does anyone here but me want to question 'Benchmarks' instead of Mhz? I mean the CPU does run at said Mhz, that hasn't changed.

    The problem is, when I see a chart comparing two companies chips, I can't believe it. I want to look for the footnote that says their system was tested with 93749234 GB of RAM, while the other companies was only tested with 1 MB of RAM.

    That is why they should just give the CPU a name, or number, or whatever and let use read these reviews. Although sometimes reviews can also be biased, I can't trust anything that comes right from the company.

    I used to have a chart showing how an AMD chip was like 50% faster than a Pentium of the same clock speed. This bothered me to no end. [it could be the other way around, that isn't important. What is: I didn't trust it.]

    It's like a detergent commercial by 'Tide' which shows you two shirts and it cleans the whole stain while 'Era' doesn't. Just seems faked.
  • Marketing.

    Most of the complex questions us slashdotters face is the result of poor marketing decisions, or decisions that make little sense.

    I'm sure AMD has their reasons for not sticking with the 'Performance Rating' crockery they gave birth to last year. I personally don't understand why there was a need to change.. and NOW...

    If the average user is too dense-headed to understand that MHz != Performance, then why are they keeping the MHz rating for their LOW end chips? Especially since using the performance rating on the Duron would net more sales. What sounds better? $118 AMD Duron 1.3GHz or $118 AMD Duron 1500+ ?

    That brings up another point, maybe AMD is losing money on these lower end chips, and they don't want someone to look at a 'MegaBargain' Duron instead of shelling out a bit more for an Athlon. In the consumer mind, Duron 1.3GHz or Athlon 1500+ isn't a hard question to answer, most people will go with the Athlon 1500 even though they are both probably the same clock speed.

    -fc

  • Toms Hardware has a 1300v1300 comparison (Score:4, Informative)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <{moc.ssovi} {ta} {vsa}> on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:53PM (#2877819) Homepage Journal
    Tom's Hardware [tomshardware.com] has a nice review and comparison [tomshardware.com] of the athlon 1300 vs. the Celeron 1300.
  • With or without the extended paging bug?

  • The cynical answer: (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Christopher Thomas ( 11717 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @03:55PM (#2877833)
    why haven't AMD gone with the MHz doesn't equal performance as they have done with the new XP/MP chips, as it would be assumed the market for these will be consumers who don't generally look at benchmark figures?

    My guess: Because they don't want to compete with *themselves*.

    If a consumer sees a Duron rated to "1.3 GHz" (1300 MHz), and an Athlon XYZ rated to "1600 FooUnits", which will they want?

    Right.

    The fact that Celeron clock numbers are no better than Duron numbers is icing on the cake.
  • I'm kinda-sorta thinking about picking up a new processor/MB/case, and I know I want an AMD chip, but I've yet to find any easy to understand table that clearly deliniates what the differences are between the various Athlons.

    Anybody got a source for such a beast? Or even feel like explaining it here?

    DG
    • I've yet to find any easy to understand table that clearly deliniates what the differences are between the various Athlons.

      Athlon XP: Buy one. 20% less power draw clock-to-clock than its predecessor, has Intel SSE support (aka 3DNow! Pro), has better hardware prefetch to take better advantage of DDR SDRAMs bandwidth. Palamino core. AMD sold 4 million of them last quarter. 266MHz FSB.

      Duron at 1GHz and higher: Same as Athlon XP but with 128K/64K L1/L2 cache instead of 128K/256K and 200MHz FSB. If you're strapped for cash, buy one.

      Athlon: The old one. Thunderbird core. Being phased out. Consider if you're offered a good deal. Some are 266MHz FSB, some are 200MHz FSB.

      Duron below 1GHz: Same as above but with 128K/64K L1/L2 cache and 200MHz FSB. Very, very inexpensive.

      I have an Athlon XP 1800+ at home, paired with an Epox 8KHA+ KT266A motherboard. Highly, highly recommended.
    • I just got myself a new Athlon XP 1700 with a Shuttle AK31 motherboard. It's a nice improvement over the K6-2 350 I was using before which was standing in for a dual P3-500 system that has a nuked motherboard. The new Athlon XP/MPs are based on the Palomino core which cycle per cycle get more done and use less power. The XP 1500's IIRC start at 1.3GHz while the 1900 is around 1.6GHz. The new Durons are based on the Morgan core and start at 1GHz and go up from there. They are a Palomino core with smaller caches and a slower FSB (200MHz as opposed to 266MHz). A 1GHz Duron is still a badass when used with a KT266A though even being slower than the Athlon. CS runs at the highest resolution with all of the video and audio goodness enabled with no problem on a GeForce2MX (salvaged from the previously mentioned dead P3). I think the only thing that manages to push the processor is d.net and Winamp visualizations.

  • is Slashdot some sort of tomshardware affiliate? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tandr ( 108948 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @04:07PM (#2877909)
    I do not get it. Why slashdot all of sudden interested in AMD (or Intel) chips that they crank out every month or so with new Hz and nothing new inside? Just to get "imagine beowulf claster of clasters of these"? Is it "stuff that matters"?

    Beside tomshardware there are a lot more sites with nice covering of whatever you want (http://xbit-labs.com for example).

    Yeah, right, toms is heavy loaded with ads (I think I never saw any site that has more per page ads), so may be slashdot decided to have 10% of revenue from it for just redirecting bunch of "cool folks" :) ?

    Couple years ago slashdot was much more "ahead of time", I used to find "things" there first, and after couple days notice same references or articles on other sites. Now it is opposite -- you find cool thing, and completely not sure if you will ever see discussion of this on slashdot (slashdot is famous for comments, not for articles).

    If 2 years is "lifetime" of modern PC, and you upgrade it, may be it is a time for slashers to upgrade to something cool or at least to be up to date? It is not a MTV, it should get better year to year...

    tandr.
  • TPI seems to actually be achieving some credibility at this point: techies regard it as a necessary marketing ploy and mostly ture, and all the consumers I've seen in electronics stores that were using clock frequency to compare performance seem to be willing to buy any number a chip manufacturer wants to slap on the machine. There was adiscussion on macslash [macslash.com] as to whether the AIM PowerPC chips should be marketed under the TPI numbers. The main problem (this was in Nov.) was that everyone seemed to regard TPI as a cheap trick. Has this changed enough for us to see them adopt it. Having every consumer system that didn't use an Intel chip use TPI numbers would also lend more credibility to the initiative, it would seem, and both AMD and Apple could benefit from this. So, will there be an iMac G4 1900+ in our future?

  • War on Ratingism (Score:2, Interesting)

    by purrpurrpussy ( 445892 )
    AMD don't need to change the ratings of the Durons. Intel need to start selling the low end P4s as budget vs AMDs Duron. The Celeron could probably last out to 1500Mhz but there just isn't any point Intel probably hope to replace it with an older remodelled P$. Duron could get up to 2Ghz easy.

    The P42000 and XP2000+ can fight it out for the fat wallets or greedy hackers and the "low spec" machines of everyone else have equal ratings BUT!! I bet AMD will pull the price rug from under Intel.... yuup.... and for once AMD has a good selection of integrated motherboards as well.... yum...

    Will Intel sell P4s under the Celeron name??? Yeah... right.... :)

  • deceptive (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AntiNorm ( 155641 ) on Monday January 21, 2002 @05:27PM (#2878397)
    'why haven't AMD gone with the MHz doesn't equal performance as they have done with the new XP/MP chips

    Because it's deceptive marketing. I'm an AMD user myself (TBird 1.2 GHz), but it really annoys me that they would be willing to mark a processor as something that it is not. Please don't try to tell me that 'performance rating...blah blah...equivalent speed in old architecture.' They are marking the new processors as speeds that they do not run at, period.

    • Re:deceptive (Score:3, Informative)

      by tswinzig ( 210999 )
      Because it's deceptive marketing. I'm an AMD user myself (TBird 1.2 GHz), but it really annoys me that they would be willing to mark a processor as something that it is not . Please don't try to tell me that 'performance rating...blah blah...equivalent speed in old architecture.' They are marking the new processors as speeds that they do not run at, period

      That is horse shit. For the Athlon XP 1900+, where do they ever say it runs at 1900Mhz? No where. All they are doing is letting people understand that their architecture allows their XP 1900 to run just as well as the Intel chips running at 1.9Ghz. And if you look at the benchmarks that many sites are coming out with, you'll see the 1900 actually beats the 2+ Ghz chips from Intel.

      If you want to talk about 'deceptive' practices, how about Intel designing the P4 so that the clock speeds are MUCH higher than their P3 chips, but the actual performance is not improved by that much?

      AMD is just trying to make it easier for shoppers to compare. As long as they don't start naming their products "XP 2500" when they don't compete with the 2.5Ghz Intel chips (for example), then I think their naming system is good.
  • This greatly reminds me of the PowerPC Mhz discussions. For example, 1Ghz PIII vs a PPC G4 500Mhz. The PIII sounds like it whips the G4 but it doesn't. Thanks to some of the G4's features, like AltiVec, the G4 performs better than the PIII. Of course the average user doesn't look at benchmarks when they buy their computer. The average user doesn't understand them anyway.

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