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• New Name First and foremost, the name 'AthlonXP' is not just following the current trend to call everything after Microsoft's new operating system WindowsXP (like e.g. NVIDIA's new originally named driver set 'DetonatorXP'), but the 'XP' that is supposed to hype the new 'experience ' you might have with WindowsXP, is supposed to suggest the 'extreme performance ' of AthlonXP. New Features AthlonXP does indeed offer 3-7% more performance per clock than previous desktop-Athlons based on the "Thunderbird"-core, because it is based on the new "Palomino"-core that we already know from AMD's multi-processor offering AthlonMP and the Mobile Athlon4 processors. I'll list Palomino's added features over Thunderbird once more: New design to reduce power consumption over Thunderbird core by 20% Implementation of the full Intel SSE instruction set. The SSE processor flag is set (if the motherboard BIOS supports Palomino) so that software can recognize AthlonMP as a SSE-capable processor. AMD calls its SSE-implementation '3Dnow! Professional'. Hardware auto data pre-fetching unit L1 Data TLB (Translation Look-Aside Buffer) was increased from 32 to 40 entries, the architecture of the data and instruction L1 and L2 TLBs was made exclusive and TLB-entries can be written speculatively. Implementation of a thermal diode to monitor processor temperature

• From Yeong Yang we received their latest MicroATX offering, the YY-A204, which is part of Yeong Yang's Casper Series. Yeong Yang has put significant effort into designing its new Casper Series, which features several new innovations that translate into a smaller and more compact case design. At the same time, these features create a thermal environment that is quite conducive to keeping the case temperature cool. What surprised us was the size of the Casper solution. Let's take a closer look at how this tiny tower solution competes with some of the "big boys." Number Of Internal 3-½ Bays 1 Number Of External 3-½ Bays 1 Number Of External 5-¼ Bays 1 Number Of Case Fans Supported 2 - 60mm Construction Material 1.0mm Steel Power Supply Details Optional 235 Watt - by Channel Well Technology Special Features Side panel thermal air guide equipped; front mount USB and audio ports Size 13.25"(H) x 14.75"(D) x 5.50"(W) Sample Case Provided By http://www.yeongyang.com.tw Estimated Cost $59.00 US Cooling Potential Rating 9 (with use of supplied thermal air guide) Construction Quality Rating 8 Overall Case Rating 8 The YY-A204 was among the most compact of the MicroATX form factors that we tested that also offered full-height PCI/AGP slots in the rear of the chassis. While the YY-A204 is somewhat short on expansion potential, featuring a 1/1/1 design, it makes up for this shortage by offering the most compact MicroATX form factor that we have seen to date, plus offering a full-height PCI/AGP card solution. Yeong Yang refers to its Casper Series as their "Tiny Tower Series." Yeong Yang has trimmed nearly every possible inch to reduce the overall size of the YY-A204. We would be remiss in not mentioning that the Casper Series is available in six other front bezel designs that all use the same internal Casper chassis platform. The design of each of the bezels is somewhat different, but they easily and interchangeably fit the Casper MicroATX chassis platform.

• Intel calls the new architecture of Pentium 4 'NetBurst'. The idea behind this name is for me just as unfathomable as the 'Internet SIMD Streaming Extension', as Intel liked to call Pentium 3's 'SSE' or 'ISSE'. Believe me, your web pages won't pop up any faster, downloads will take just as long and the Internet won't 'burst' either. However, Intel is trying its hardest to be trendy and since the Internet is still hip, it is a perfect vehicle to market Pentium 4. The name 'NetBurst' could also be a hint towards Pentium 4's performance characteristics. Professional PC-users might not care quite as much for an 'Internet-accelerating' processor, but more for a product that makes them get their work done as fast as possible. Looking at the benchmark results further down in this article shows that Pentium 4 shines a lot more at recreational software than in professional applications. Another big issue with Pentium 4's 'NetBurst-Architecture' is its obvious focus to deliver highest clock rates. Again 'NetBurst' shows its roots in Intel's marketing department. The avid Tom's Hardware Guide reader will be aware of it, but the average computer user still hasn't grasped the fact that clock rate does NOT automatically translate in performance when looking at different processor designs. This is another issue targeted by Pentium 4 and 'NetBurst'. Intel wants clock rate at almost any cost and the Pentium 4 design is perfect to deliver exactly that. Average Joe is supposed to read those high Giga-Hertz numbers and conclude that this alone is already good enough to make Pentium 4 the fastest processor in the universe. Marketing - that's what the name 'NetBurst' seems to be all about. NetBurst includes the following goodies that have been implemented into the new Pentium 4 desgin: Faster System Bus Advanced Transfer Cache (already known from Pentium III) Advanced Dynamic Execution (Execution Trace Cache, Enhanced Branch Prediction) Hyper Pipelined Technology Rapid Execution Engine Enhanced Floating Point and Multi-Media (SSE2) Let's look at each of those features in more detail, acting like code/data that is being processed by Pentium 4. The New Processor Bus The first new feature seen by code or data as it enters Pentium 4 is the new system bus. The well-known 'FSB' of Pentium 3 is clocked at 133 MHz and able to transfer 64 bit of data per clock, offering a data bandwidth of 8 Byte * 133 million/s = 1,066 MB/s. Pentium 4's system bus is only clocked at 100 MHz and also 64 bit wide, but it is 'quad-pumped', using the same principle as AGP4x. Thus it can transfer 8 Byte * 100 million/s * 4 = 3,200 MB/s. This is obviously a tremendous improvement that even leaves AMD's recently 'upgraded ' EV6-bus quite far behind. The bus of the most recent Athlon's is clocked at 133 MHz, 64 bit wide and 'double-pumped', offering 8 Byte * 133 million/s * 2 = 2,133 MB/s. The new bus of Pentium 4 enables it to exchange data with the rest of the system faster than any other x86-processor, thus removing one important bottleneck that Pentium 3 was suffering from. However, the fastest processor bus doesn't help much unless the system's main memory can deliver data at an according pace. Intel's new 850 chipset for Pentium 4, which currently represents the only chipset for this new CPU, is using two Rambus channels and therefore the expensive and unpopular RDRAM. However, these two RDRAM channels are able to deliver the same data bandwidth as Pentium 4's new bus (3,200 MB/s), making them a perfect match at least on paper. This constellation enables Pentium 4-systems to have the highest data transfer rates between processor, system and main memory, which is a clear benefit. At the same time system cost is impacted by the high price of RDRAM plus the fact that a Pentium 4-system always requires two or even four RDRAM-RIMMs of the same size and spec. One, three or mixed RIMMs are not an option.