End of AthlonXP Line?

**Stalemate** · December 7th, 2004, 11:54 AM

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041207-4438.html

12/7/2004 3:28:37 AM, by Fred "zAmboni" Locklear
According to documents seen by The Inquirer, the Athlon XP line of processors has reached the end of the line and AMD will cease sales at the end of this month. The XP has seen the writing on the wall ever since the Sempron was introduced as AMD's budget CPU, the emergence of the A64-FX line at the desktop processor high end, and the omission of the XP from AMD's latest public roadmap. Now that AMD has ramped up Sempron speeds to nearly cover the low end Athlon 64 CPUs, the XP line is expendable. Benchmarks of the Sempron 3100+ put it slightly behind the Athlon 64 2800+ in most applications.

PC enthusiasts who have relied on the XP line will soon have to make a decision. Low speed socket A XP users have several Sempron processors to migrate to, but AMD appears to be completely transferring the Sempron line to socket 754, and socket A will soon be cast aside. As for the others, the XP 3200+ is the end of the road for socket A, but a migration to an Athlon 64 shouldn't be too painful. A quick look at street prices show an Athlon 64 3200+ (either socket 754 or 939) can be had for the same price as a socket A XP 3200+. Now may be the time to ask for a Hot Rod for the holidays.