AMD / Duron vs Athlon Classic

[woodbutcher]

Is there any "real world" gains if I go with the Athlon 1.1 200 mhz vs the Duron 1.1 200 mhz processors? I know about the cache difference (size), anything else?
I need to pick-up one or the other and the athlon is only $9.00 dollars more.
Opinions please.

Thanks
WB

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Actually, the Duron 1.1 is a morgan core (supports SSE) I'ld actually recommend it, but not over an XP processor. (make sure your motherboard can support Durons with a morgan core, what mobo is it going into?

[woodbutcher]

MSI- K7T Master (ms-6347)
Via KT-133 NB, 686A SB,.

Link
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/produc...&MODEL=MS-6347

No morgan core support AND I could have sworn that it would take a 1.1 duron, 1.0 only.
So I should revise this to either the spitfire 1.0 duron or the classic 1.1 athlon. $2.00 dollar difference.

WB

Edit for link

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Guess, I'ld go with the Athlon for 2$ more and an extra 100Mhz.

[woodbutcher]

Yes, pretty obvious at that point.
Sorry.
I have a MSI-6341 ver1.1 sitting here that needs to be put together (along with the 6347).
That does have support for the morgan core durons and xp palominos (but no Tbreds xps).
While on the subject are the morgan core durons on par with the "classic" athlons except for FSB?

WB

[bill1971]

Hey wb:
I'd also like to know if all Durons bought today @1GHz and above are all Morgan cores? If not, how can you tell?

From Doc's recent post, I just received a 1.2GHz Duron for $34 delivered(Fedex Saver),(OEM - 20 day warranty), from www.Compubuzz.com . Came in the typical small plastic case, and well-packaged.

Sorry to divert, wb, but I'd also like to know how to find out exactly what CPUs are supported for a given mobo ? Some mobo sites are incomplete when it comes to this, i.e., they don't always have good, complete release notes for each BIOS revision,etc.
Thanks.

- Bill

[AuraEdge]

All Durons starting at 1Ghz are Morgan cores. The Spitfire core stopped at 900Mhz.

The Spitfire (Duron @ <1Ghz) is the value version of the Thunderbird Athlon, which is what the Athlon 1.1Ghz is. The Morgan (Duron >1Ghz) is the value cache version of the Palomino (Athlon XP).

Spitfire has 64k of L2 Cache, and all come at 200Mhz FSB. Spitfires go up to 950Mhz.

Thunderbird had 256k of L2 Cache, and come in 200Mhz and 266Mhz. Thunderbirds go up to 1.4Ghz.

Morgan has 64k of L2 Cache, and all come at 200Mhz FSB. This core has 3DNow! Professional, which is the same as Intel's SSE introduced in the Pentium 3. It also has a few enhancements that makes it slightly cooler and more efficient than the Spitfire. Morgans go up to 1.3Ghz.

Palomino has 256k of L2 Cache, and all come at 266Mhz FSB. This core also has 3DNow! Professional. This one also has some enhancements to make it cooler and run more efficiently than the Thunderbird core. They go up to 1.73Ghz (Athlon XP 2100+).

Theres actually two older Athlon cores than the Thunderbird, which is the K7 core and the K75 core. These are the ones that are normally refered to as "Classic Athlons", and the K75 core ended with 1Ghz. These had 512K Cache, but it ran slower than the cache on newer Athlons.

Edited to fix spitfire speed.

[bill1971]

Thanks for that info, AE:

So the Classic Athlons w/512k cache were the Slot A's, with the cache on the PCB,running at 1/2 the CPU speed, and not on the die, as with the Socket A's and 462's. Is that right? I'm just trying to keep everything straight! Thanks.

Oh, so you're saying my retail-boxed 950MHz Duron is a Morgan core?? Thanks.

- Bill

[woodbutcher]

Hi bill,
I saw that post and commented on the "color" of the durons they had pictured, that being the newer durons.
Is your duron "base" grey in color?
Not a very technical approach but I have very little info on the difference between the 2 except of the SSE issue (where did the wizzard go).
According to the MSI site the morgan core starts at 900 and runs up to 1.3 where as the spitfire core starts at 600 and runs to 1.0 ghz.
As far as support the chipset (as I'm sure you know) determines what you can run, ie a 686a SB is good for 200mhz where as the 686b SB is good for 266mhz.
One of the things I really like about MSI is the fact that you can access drivers, cpu compatability and everything you could want right from the product description page.
Click on the link above to MSI and you will see what I mean, easy.
IMO all mobo companys should be set up this way!

WB

[woodbutcher]

AE
Thanks for the info.
I had forgotten about the actual K7 term, that being know as the "classic Athlon".
I thought that the duron spitfire core was made to the 1.0 mark, maybe not as there would be the "overlapping" confusion that currently exsists with the current XP processors.
Anyhow, thanks.

WB