curious about amd chip differences

[lagger]

Ok so I havent had a good experience with amd as my only experience was with the k-6 a million years ago. I'm changing my mind of course since any reasonable person can see the advantages of amd based systenms costerformance ratio-wise.. my question is this... at an equal clock speed ..say 1ghz .. what are the essential differences/advantages\disadvantages of the athalon vs.the T-Bird ??
Lagger

<b><font color=blue>Never try to idiot proof anything..God will always make a better Idiot </b> </font color=blue>

 

[ksoth]

The TBird is an Athlon, it's just an "enhanced" version. The older "classic" athlons were at .25 micron and had I think it was 512K of off-die L2 cache. The new TBird Athlons are at .18 micron with 256K of on-die L2 cache. Those are pretty much the only differences, but the on-die cache really makes the new TBird perform better than the older Athlons. TBirds are also cheaper.

"We put the <i>fun</i> back into fundamentalist dogma!"

 

[ejsmith2]

That's pretty much it, along with the L2 cache running at system clock. The AMD processors have a lot more support from the OS community nowadays, which is a rather large step up from the K6-2.

 

[HolyGrenade]

There is no point getting an old athlon! Go for the TBird.
Perhaps wait for the Palomino.


<i><b><font color=red>"2 is not equal to 3, not even for large values of 2"</font color=red></b></i>

 

[jerry557]

No use waiting. You can wait for the Palomino to come out but when you do; one month later a higher speed comes out. I mean you can wait and wait and the chips will keep coming and coming. If you think in your mind that you will wait untill I can get the best chip. You will never buy one.

 

[HolyGrenade]

Higher Speed, but same technology. Palomino is like a ministep forward form the current gen. So, its worth the wait.


<i><b><font color=red>"2 is not equal to 3, not even for large values of 2"</font color=red></b></i>

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure about the cache running at the system clock on T-BIRD... I think the cache is running at 1/3 or 2/5 of cpu clock depending on the speed of the cpu..

 

[kurokaze]

No, that was the problem with the Slot A Athlons.. at 1Ghz I think the L2 cache was running at 1/4 clock. But the Tbirds have full speed L2 cache.