Intel Rigs Up: P4 Series with FSB800

FSB 800: AMD Losing Ground

If you glance at the new benchmark listings you will see that the gap between the AMD Athlon XP and the Intel P4 has increased in Intel's favor since the last comparative test, High-Flying: AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Squares Off Against Intel P4 3 GHz . The increase in front side bus speed from 133 MHz to 200 MHz plays a major role here. Now, take into account the virtual doubling-up of the CPU, thanks to Hyperthreading, and it becomes clear that all P4 processors have received a major performance boost.

The performance of the new Athlon XP 3200+ flagship model lies somewhere between that of the 2.6 GHz Pentium 4 (with Hyperthreading and FSB 800) and the 2.8 GHz P4. Once again, we see that AMD's model numbering is overly optimistic.

The Athlon XP 3200+ could be more accurately described as an XP 2800+. We would ask AMD once again to bring their model numbering into line, as they are claiming a higher performance than their product actually delivers. The counter-argument that this model numbering is an AMD-specific performance rating is not tenable.

Memory Lane: History Of All The AMD And Intel CPUs

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