Benchmark Marathon: 65 CPUs from 100 MHz to 3066 MHz

Athlon XP 1500+ To 2100+: October 2001 To March 2002

The upgrade for the Athlon based on the Thunderbird core came with the introduction of the Palomino core. At the very same time, AMD introduced its revised model numbering system, which no longer related directly to the actual processor speed. Production continued using the 0.18 micron process and the number of transistors now stood at 37.5 million. There were new features, too. The thermal diode was introduced, even though there were no motherboards available to support it at first. From the Palomino core on, the manufacturer equipped the CPU with SSE extensions. There were no changes as far as the cache was concerned.

Head to head with the 2 GHz Intel P4: Athlon XP 2000+ with Palomino core.

Our test system with the Athlon XP 2100+.

Athlon XP 1700+ To 2100+: April 2002 To June 2002

With the introduction of the Thoroughbred core "A", AMD reduced the circuit width of its Athlon to 0.13 microns. Maximum thermal dissipation was close to that of its predecessor.