Athalon....Duron...whats the difference?

[Justin]

Yup Justin got himself an Athalon 900 and hes been reading lots of articles about the atalon and the duron....and Justin knows the duron is the value cpu...but Justin has one important question....If an Athalon and a Duron were both clocked at 900 which would be faster and why? Justin knows its going to be the athalon becasue it cost more...but Justin really wants to know the why.....

[Skeletor916]

i assume there could be a load more to it, but some athlons have a 266 fsb, while all durons (i think) have a fsb of 200

[WillysNut]

The main difference between the two processors is the L2 cache. Both are essentially the same core. All Durons have alumnium interconnects...Some Athlons/T-Birds have Copper Interconnects. Copper conducts electricty better..therefore conducts signals better and allows for a faster chip.

Durons and Athlons both have 128k L1 cache. The main difference...Durons have 64k of L2 cache while Athlons/T-Birds have 256K. Hope this helps. BTW...Durons are still great processors IMHO.

[FRANK]

I concur with WillysNut, the difference is the cache.

One other note If your motherboard will support it, the DURON will run at a 133+ FSB. I've had a couple of DURON 600's at 1100MHz and over for several months now with no problems. I've got one at 1100MHz 10*110 (A7V / KT133 chipset) and another at 1130MHz 8.5*133 (A7V133 / KT133A chipset).

Good Luck! Great chip for the money.

[dat]

I agree, the main difference between the athlon and the duron is the cache. I still haven't tried mine at 133FSB but I will once I get rid of the generic ram and get some CAS 2 Cosiar.

[DoDFAMW4]

Hehehe..he owns one yet he cannot spell it? A-T-H-L-O-N hope this helps =P

[wild_andy_c]

Justin (Jul 05, 2001 06:00 a.m.):
Yup Justin got himself an Athalon 900 and hes been reading lots of articles about the atalon and the duron....and Justin knows the duron is the value cpu...but Justin has one important question....If an Athalon and a Duron were both clocked at 900 which would be faster and why? Justin knows its going to be the athalon becasue it cost more...but Justin really wants to know the why.....

Quite literally a cache thing. Both have 128k of L1, but Duron has just 64kb of L2, and Athlon 256kb of L2.

In a dissimilar fashion to Intels chips however, AMD's chips maintain the same amount of association within the cache, rather than crippling them into absurdity like Intel..... or so to speak - Duron pelts Celeron because AMD didn't cripple it's cache in effectiveness aswell as size.

[wild_andy_c]

DoDFAMW4 (Jul 09, 2001 04:24 p.m.):
Hehehe..he owns one yet he cannot spell it? A-T-H-L-O-N hope this helps =P

And you've set your signature up with your speed as a mail addy that does nothing. Don't take the proverbial out of the members, especially in a third person manner.