AMD Launches Athlon Processor at 1300 and 1333 MHz

Evaluation, Continued

From that point of view Pentium 4 1.5 GHz is pretty much on par with Athlon 1200. It's almost 5% behind Athlon 1200 in 3D-gaming and 10% behind Athlon 1200 in professional OpenGL, but identical in Office / Web and 15% faster in video.

Athlon 1333 is in average only about 6% faster than Athlon 1200. Keep that in mind when you have to decide between the two. If you overclock Athlon 1333 to 1466 MHz the gain over Athlon 1200 is about 10%. That's something, but still not exactly mind-blowing. The expense of a Vapochill system gives you almost 15% over Athlon 1200. That's all you will get.

Conclusion

With the release of Athlon 1300/1333 AMD has shown that it is well capable to offer faster Thunderbird-cores. The processor leaves Intel's Pentium 4 1.5 GHz behind and earns AMD the performance crown once again. However, Intel will soon release Pentium 4 1.7 GHz, which will close the gap once more. The race for the fastest PC-microprocessor continues and once more AMD has struck first.

For the real performance freaks Athlon 1333 could mean a lot more. It is much more overclockable than Athlon 1200 and running cooler than its predecessor as well. I doubt that it will take AMD long to be ready for Athlon at 1466 MHz. This clock speed can definitely be reached before the highly successful Thunderbird core will need replacement. Intel's life hasn't become any easier today.

Finally you can have a look at the latest official AMD-pricing scale:

It's easy to spot the fact that AMD's pricing is way more attractive than Intel's, but I suppose that I don't tell you any news here.