AMD's Latest Thunderbird: SocketA Athlon at 1.1 GHz

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Conclusion

There you have it. AMD has simply taken the next step and brought the Thunderbird core to the next speed grade. It is good to see that this did not require any strange tweaks to the core or to the platform. Basically, the 1.1 GHz Athlon is 'just another Athlon' really. This can only be a good thing compared to Intel's 1.13 GHz Pentium III, which turned out a rather troublesome solution. It is rather obvious that the Thunderbird core offers a lot more clock speed headroom than Intel's Coppermine-core. However, while Coppermine will soon be replaced by 'Willamette' or 'Pentium 4', Athlon will have to stick around a bit longer. AMD will probably be forced to put an even faster Thunderbird up against Intel's future Pentium 4, unless 'Mustang' should indeed be ready very soon.

The same that I said in the review of Intel's Pentium III at 1.13 GHz is obviously valid for AMD's new super-processor as well. Make sure you've got software that justifies the expense!!! I wouldn't know a lot of people that really need this processor right now. However, if you want to go for a top-notch x86-CPU, I'd rather go for AMD's offering. The reason is pretty simple. First of all it seems rather obvious that the Athlon/Thunderbird 1.1 GHz is the more reliable and more flexible solution of the two. It also offers excellent performance and it comes for a much more attractive price than Intel's counterpart.

I am still wondering if Intel won't retract the 1.13 GHz Pentium III very soon. If you are in doubt have a look at Kyle Bennett's article about the Tri-1.13 GHz testing he just published today. I consider it as a mere question of time until even Intel's not-so-infallible engineers will finally realize that there's something seriously wrong with Intel's current high-end offering. I can only repeat once more that the upcoming Pentium IV will hopefully have a better stability record. Wouldn't it be nice if I finally had a reason to write nice things about Intel again?