The Final Battle: P4/2400 vs. Athlon XP 2100+ (2400+)

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Intel Pentium 4 Vs. AMD Athlon XP

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Manufacturer	AMD	AMD	Intel
Processor	Athlon XP w/Palomino Core	Athlon XP w/Thoroughbred Core	Pentium 4 w/Northwood Core
Introduction	October 9, 2001	Q2, 2002	January 7, 2002
Clock Frequencies	1.2 - 1.80 GHz	1.86 - 2.xx GHz	1.6 - 2.xx GHz
Manufacturing Process	0,18 µm	0,13 µm	0,13 µm
Die size	128 mm2	80 mm2	146 mm2
Number of Gates	37,5 Million	37,5 Million	55 Million
Platform	Socket462	Socket462	Socket478
CPU Bus Clock (Front Side Bus)	133 MHz / 266 MHz DDR	133 MHz / 266 MHz DDR	100 MHz / 400 MHz QDR
L1 Execution Cache Size	64 kB	64 kB	12.000 µ-Ops (Trace Cache)
Execution Pre Decode?	no	no	yes
L1 Data Cache Size	64 kB	64 kB	8 kB (unconfirmed)
Hardware Data Prefetch	yes	yes	yes
L1 Cache Clock	core clock	core clock	core clock
L1 Data Cache Bus Width	64 bit	64 bit	256 bit
L2 Cache Size	256 kB	256 kB	512 kB
L2 Cache Clock	core clock	core clock	core clock
L2 Cache Addressable Range	64 GB	64 GB	64 GB
Processor Data Bus Width	64 bit	64 bit	64 bit
Platform Support
Chipsets	VIA KT133 to KT333ASiS 735 and SiS 745ALi Magik 1Nvidia nForceAMD 750 and 760	VIA KT133A to KT333ASiS 735 and SiS 745ALi Magik 1Nvidia nForceAMD 750 and 760	Intel 845, Intel 845D and Intel 845EIntel 850 and Intel 850EVIA P4X266VIA P4X266ASiS 645
Type of Memory	SDRAM, DDR-SDRAM	SDRAM, DDR-SDRAM	SDRAM, DDR-SDRAM, RDRAM
Memory Clock	100/133/166 MHz	100/133/166 MHz	100/133/166/300/400/533 MHz
Instruction Extensions
MMX	yes	yes	yes
Enhanced 3DNow!	yes	yes	no
3DNow! Professional	yes	yes	no
SSE	yes	yes	yes
SSE2	no	no	yes
Electrical Specifications
SMP-Support	no ('not officially endorsed or supported')	no ('not officially endorsed or supported')	no
Core Voltage	1,75 Volt	1,5 Volt	1,5 Volt
Thermal Protection (Thermal Diode)	yes	yes	yes
Integrated Thermal Protection Logic	no, requires logic on motherboard	no, requires logic on motherboard	yes

Intel's Strategy: Dual-Channel DDR By The End Of 2002?

The chapter on memory is clearly of a political nature, because ultimately, Intel has committed itself to DDR technology after RDRAM was massively boycotted by the market. With the continually increasing clock speeds, especially with the Intel platform, one thing is obvious: the single-channel DDR technology (DDR266) cannot offer enough bandwidth to achieve optimal system performance. A System with Rambus memory or dual-channel DDR helps, but the latter is certainly not in sight. So the only thing that's left for the power user is the possibility of switching to the RDRAM platform. In any case, as our benchmark results show, DDR266 memory slows down the entire system with clock speeds of 2.5 GHz, at the very latest. Even the Pentium 4/2400, which we ran with 133 MHz FSB, showed an indisputable increase in speed when used in combination with 533 MHz RDRAM memory. Highly confidential roadmap documents, which are revealed to only the closest of partners, prove that the manufacturer will already be introducing a chipset with Dual DDR support at the end of this year. This is supposed to provide the bandwidth required for P4 CPUs with clock speeds starting from 3 GHz.

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Intel Pentium 4 Vs. AMD Athlon XP

Intel Pentium 4 Vs. AMD Athlon XP

Intel's Strategy: Dual-Channel DDR By The End Of 2002?

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