how does athlon differ from tbs?

[perry929]

how does it differ between the two? i just ordered a tb 1ghz socket a and it came as a socket a with amd athlon printed on the die. can someone tell me what the differences are and why is athlon printed on the die? thanks

-p

 

[Atomix]

I am pretty sure that a T-bird is an Athlon but with the 128k L1 and 256kL2 cache at full core speed plus its a socket. I think the older athlons were 128k L1 and 512k L2 (but the L2 was mobo speed) and they are slot but also some slot athlons came 128/256 so maybe its the fact that t birds and socket a and perhaps there is an instruction set difference.

 

[kn7671]

The ThunderBird and Athlon use the same core design, but the TBird has the L2 cache internal and at full speed of the CPU, thus the main limiting factor is the CPU die quality itself for speed, not the cache, as is the case with the Slot A Athlon.

 

[Nagorak]

Thunderbird Athlons and Durons have on-die caches that run at the full processor speed. Earlier Athlons, like PIIs had cache modules that were separate on the processor cartridge (this necessity is why PIIs and Athlons had to go to a cartridge design to begin with, btw). The Athlon classic, like the PII is MUCH slower than a Tbird because of it's slow cache which runs at 1/2 or even 1/3 of the processor speed.

 

[Big Mike]

If your looking for reasurance, be reasured, all socket A chips labeled "Athlon" are thunderbirds, t-bird was just a development code name for the on die cache version of the classic athlon. The only thing to be careful of is if you pay for a socket A thunderbird and it says duron on the die. Also the Classic slot a chips come in athlon and athlon "with performance enhancing cache" <tbird on a slot card> but i dont know how to tell them apart aside from if you crack the case theres only one big chip instead of a bunch of them.