Athlon, XP's, MP's & Palamino's....A difference?

[confus-ed]

Okay besides how many trillion(?) transistors you can get on a chip, in words of one syllable please, explanations of any differences, besides a price hike?

Performance wise the original Athlon seems faster?? I'm confus-ed <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[Matridom]

[quote]Originally posted by confus-ed:
<strong>Okay besides how many trillion(?) transistors you can get on a chip, in words of one syllable please, explanations of any differences, besides a price hike?

Performance wise the original Athlon seems faster?? I'm confus-ed </strong><hr></blockquote>

I'm no AMD buff, but i'll try..

XP is the 13 micron manufacturing of the chip (a shrink from the Thunderbird core) it also runs on the 133 bus and has gone to the PR rating on the CPU. I.E. Athlon XP2000+ is the equilivant to a P4 2Ghz, even though the XP run at like 18xx Mhz.

The MP is the Multiprocessor version of the same chip, Palamino is the code name for the XP chip.

Any AMD buffs, feel free to correct me.

[jaeger]

Might get this a bit off, but oh well...

The Palomino is the successor to the Thunderbird core. What have been added are support for Intel's SSE instructions (but not SSE-2), data pre-fetch to speed up memory transfers, and lower power consumption achieved by optimizing the chip structure. Palomino based chips have 37.5 million transistors. The AXP and MP are based on the Palomino core.

I think the AXP is still at the .18 micron and is scheduled for a shrink to either .13 or .15 later this year. BTW, an AXP 2000+ is actually 1.667 Ghz.

The AMP is basically the same as the AXP, the only difference is that the AMPs have been officialy qualified as being dual proc capable. The AXPs are dual capable, though.

Performance wise the newer chips are faster.

[TrackMan]

Officially it's .18 micron, but due to it's power characteristics it's believed to be partly based on .13 micron. Intel dissected one of the chips to verify this, but who can take them at thier word?

The next version will be completly .13 micron.

[Gameguru]

[quote]Originally posted by jaeger:
<strong>Might get this a bit off, but oh well...

The Palomino is the successor to the Thunderbird core. What have been added are support for Intel's SSE instructions (but not SSE-2), data pre-fetch to speed up memory transfers, and lower power consumption achieved by optimizing the chip structure. Palomino based chips have 37.5 million transistors. The AXP and MP are based on the Palomino core.

I think the AXP is still at the .18 micron and is scheduled for a shrink to either .13 or .15 later this year. BTW, an AXP 2000+ is actually 1.667 Ghz.

The AMP is basically the same as the AXP, the only difference is that the AMPs have been officialy qualified as being dual proc capable. The AXPs are dual capable, though.

Performance wise the newer chips are faster.</strong><hr></blockquote>


Exactly right here. AMD will not support a dual proc setup with the XP as they are not "guarunteed" to work. MPs will ALWAYS work.

[FatalException0E]

Did everyone miss the big difference between the XP and MP, or did AMD make a change that I'm not aware of?
The MP chip has twice as much L2 cache as the XP chip. Or at least the early MP had twice as much as the Thunderbird. (384k vs 192k, I believe)

[Darren Wilson]

[quote]Originally posted by FatalException0E:
<strong>Did everyone miss the big difference between the XP and MP, or did AMD make a change that I'm not aware of?
The MP chip has twice as much L2 cache as the XP chip. Or at least the early MP had twice as much as the Thunderbird. (384k vs 192k, I believe)</strong><hr></blockquote>

Here goes -

• Athlon MP
  
  133Mhz (266DDR) Front Side Bus
  128Kb L1 Cache & 256Kb L2 Cache
  Will work as a single CPU or on a Multi-CPU system.
  .18 Micron Copper process fabrication
• Athlon XP
  
  133Mhz (266DDR) FSB
  128Kb L1 Cache & 256Kb L2 Cache
  Early XP CPU's would work in Multi-CPU configurations although not supported by AMD. Later models are locked so not to work in Multi-CPU workstations.
  Using the Quantispeed rating (PRxxxx+) which pertains to the equivalent speed of the older .18 micron Thunderbird Athlon would need to run at to perform equivalently. The PR rating has nothing to do with equivalent of the respective 'speed' Pentium 4 CPU. i.e. a PR2100+ running at 1733Mhz is the equivalent of an Athlon 'Thunderbird' 2.1Ghz.
  .18 Micron Copper Process (Palomino Core) / .13 Micron Copper Process fabrication (Thoroughbred core)

[freddy]

so are we now saying that the only difference (today) between the MP and the XP is the ability to work in duel mode?

just looking at prices ( <a href="http://www.dabs.com" target="_blank">www.dabs.com</a> ) they list the xp 1600 (1.4) @ £108 and the MP 1600 (1.4)@ £160.

so are you paying a £52.00 bomus to amd to use a pair?

or is there something else in the CPU structure.


PS nice to see u back Darron

freddy

[Budd]

its good to see Mr Wilson back. is this a permenent thing Darren? or are you just back for a brief visit?

[Darren Wilson]

[quote]Originally posted by freddy:
<strong>so are we now saying that the only difference (today) between the MP and the XP is the ability to work in duel mode?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Sort off, and the fact that the MP is still based on the .18 micron fabrication process whilst the XP is on the newer .13 micron fab.

[condor]

actually the Athlon XP and the Athlon MP are the same design basically.

Any Athlon CPU is designed to be used in a Dual CPU scenario but AMD disabled that feature in all the CPUs except the MP series.

as far as .18 or .13 the current Athlon XPs are still 0.18 the new Athlon XP w/Thoroughbred Core will be .13 and should be released in a short while.

The main advantage of the new cpu will be clock speed and voltage. at 1.5 Volt (comparing with 1.75 volts of the current XP) we can expect AMD to finally catch up with Intel clock speeds so I wouldn't be suprised to see an Athlon XP 2400+ to 2800+ in the near future.

btw, according to AMD the new athlon XPs should work with the existing mobos (as long as the CPU core voltage is supported) my guess is that 90% of the mobos supporting the Athlon XP will be able to upgrade and will require a simple BIOS update.

[Darren Wilson]

I am jumping the gun, you are right Condor. .13 should be here within a few weeks now.

[+Daemon+]

Athlon and XP cannot be setup in pairs MP and Palamino can

MP and Palamino are for server use

[Darren Wilson]

[quote]Originally posted by Daemon:
<strong>Athlon and XP cannot be setup in pairs </strong><hr></blockquote>

I am going to disagree with you on the 'Athlon cannot be paired' statement as it has been done and is done still by users who don't wish to spend the extra on the MP CPU's, and I personally know of at least 7 people who are running dual Athlon Thunderbird 'C' 1.4Ghz CPU's. If you wanted to you can even run Duron's in dual configurations. The first XP CPU's that were released were multi-CPU capable due to AMD not locking them. Once it got out around the hardware sites that these CPU's were 'MP' compatiable, AMD made sure that they locked them on future models.

[Matridom]

[quote]Originally posted by Darren Wilson:
<strong>

I am going to disagree with you on the 'Athlon cannot be paired' statement as it has been done and is done still by users who don't wish to spend the extra on the MP CPU's, and I personally know of at least 7 people who are running dual Athlon Thunderbird 'C' 1.4Ghz CPU's. If you wanted to you can even run Duron's in dual configurations. The first XP CPU's that were released were multi-CPU capable due to AMD not locking them. Once it got out around the hardware sites that these CPU's were 'MP' compatiable, AMD made sure that they locked them on future models.</strong><hr></blockquote>


>G< this sounds like something Intel did a few years ago.. "Celerons cannot be run in dual configuration" And then what comes out? Abit BP6.