What is the difference?

[slvr_phoenix]

What exactly is the difference between a T-Bird and an Athlon?

- Sanity is purely based on point-of-view.

 

[Guest]

just a guess,(a wag, not a swag)but i think the answer is Marketing, seeing how marketing is trying to drive the train.

"why buy when you can register?"

 

[Guest]

A T-Bird IS an Athlon, but there are second generation Athlon T-Birds (133Mhz) which are Socket A Athlons and first generation Athlons (Athlon only) (100Mhz) which are Slot A Athlons.

Basically, I think it was intended to differenciate the two Athlons (SlotA and SocketA).



- Better go Green than Blue!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Shazam on 01/22/01 04:44 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

In Aust they are not called T-Birds, we call them Athlons, I think its just America where they are called T-Birds, trust you americans to be different, LOL


Life is a lesson, you learn it when youre through

 

[Guest]

The original athlons came in slot A format. They had 512k L2 cache on the cartridge which ran at 1/2 the clock of the processor. As the clock speeds of the processor increased the speed of the L2 cache was not able to maintain the 1/2 ratio and became a smaller percentage of the processor clock.

The Athlon TB has 256k L2 cache running on die at full speed. It improves performance about an average of 10% compared to the same clocked athlon classic. Most of these processors come in the socket A format, but some are produced in slot A.

For the moment, both the athlon classic and TB have external speeds of 100mhz DDR (effectively 200mhz). Soon a 133mhz DDR TB will be availble.

SlotA processors work in the AMD 750 (accepts 100mhz memory) or VIA kx133 (accepts 133mhz memory). However, slot A TBs do not work in the Kx133, atleast not reliably.

The popular socket A platforms are the VIA KT133 and KT133A. Basically the KT133 is a socket a version of the KX133 and the KT133A allows a 133mhz DDR FSB. Also, there are some chipsets that support DDR memory comming out soon.

 

[Arrow]

Simply said, the Thunderbird is the newer generation of the Athlon and is better than the classic Athlon.

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>

 

[rcf84]

I like the name T-Bird it makes you pc sounds like a muscle Car.

Cel 533 - 256mb sdram
15gb HD - ati radeon 32mb ddr (200/200)
SB live! mp3+ - win98 Beos

 

[Guest]

LOL yeh, and after the Pentium 4, I think intels next chip will be named something differant, nobody would want a P5.

 

[rcf84]

athlon "classic" = slot 1 , 512kb(1/2 speed) cache
athlon"t-bird" = socket a , 256kb (full speed) cache

Cel 533 - 256mb sdram
15gb HD - ati radeon 32mb ddr (200/200)
SB live! mp3+ - win98 Beos

 

[Grizely1]

No your wrong. Athlon K7 and TBird Athlon both use 100MHz FSB (cause of the EV6 technology it's effectively 200MHz). The difference between TBird and K7 is that one is a Socket and one is a Slot.

Also the TBird uses on die cache, so the cache is running the same speed as the processor (1.2GHz Tbird has 1.2GHz cache). The K7's have cache dividers, so the cache runs at 1/3, 1/2, or 2/3 of the clock spped, not full speed like in the Tbirds.

 

[TheAntipop]

yea i like to say I have a T-bird, makes you think of the great american muscle cars from the 50's and 60's, the golden ages of cars, much like now is the golden age or computers

If at first you don't succede, skydiving isn't for you.
<font color=blue>Intel Inside</font color=blue> = Idiot Outside

 

[Guest]

Always thought TBird was 133MHz. Thanx

But wasn't AMD building the first TBirds in SlotA format or was it SocketA all along?



- Better go Green than Blue!

 

[Grizely1]

Yeah there are some Slot A Thunderbird's around but they're hard to find.