The smoke has cleared, the battlefield remains deserted and some unclear points have finally come into focus.  The end of 1999 was a very unusual time for the CPU industry; we were originally told that the market would have to wait until 2000 to see anything faster than 700MHz from AMD and anything faster than 733MHz from Intel.

But in a professional version of the classic, ‘mine’s bigger’, competition, Intel and AMD accelerated both of their roadmaps and began announcing processors at an incredible rate.  It all started with the announcement of the Pentium III 733, which caused Compaq, one of the leading OEMs that use Athlon CPUs to influence AMD into releasing the 750MHz version of the Athlon simply in order to have a higher clock speed offering than Intel.  Intel’s response was the release of the Pentium III at 750MHz in addition to two other processors, an 800MHz Pentium III using the 133MHz FSB and an 800MHz Pentium III using the 100MHz FSB.  On the same day that Intel made those three introductions, AMD responded with their very own Athlon 800, once again because of increasing pressure from their faithful OEMs.

This time around, in anticipation of Intel’s upcoming annual Developer’s Forum (IDF) in Palm Springs, CA, AMD has pushed for the release of the next speed grade of their Athlon CPU.  Now running at 850MHz, the Athlon’s K75 core has yet another clock speed title under its belt.  Originally intended to be released on the 14^th of February, the Athlon 850’s release was sped up, once again by OEM influences, to a few days earlier just in case Intel decided to go ahead and release their higher clock speed Pentium IIIs at IDF.

Athlon 850 Specifications

·22 million transistor AMD K75 0.18-micron core

·850MHz clock speed – 8.5x clock multiplier

·128KB on-die L1 cache running at core speed

·512KB external on-card L2 cache running at 2/5 core speed (340MHz)

·242-pin Slot-A EV6 CPU Interface running at 100MHz DDR (effectively 200MHz)

·1.70v core voltage

As you can see, the Athlon 850 is just like the 750 and 800MHz in that it features a 2/5 L2 cache divider.  All of the Athlon CPUs slower than 750MHz feature a 1/2 L2 cache divider instead, meaning that the Athlon 700 still has a faster L2 cache (700MHz * 1/2 = 350MHz) than the Athlon 850 (850MHz * 2/5 = 340MHz), but because of the clock speed increase the Athlon 850 will still perform better than the older 700. 

The Athlon 850 is the third chip to initially use the K75 core; however, all new Athlon CPUs are being manufactured using the new 0.18-micron core.  The benefits of the 0.18-micron die shrink include lower power requirements and lower heat dissipation figures.  For example, a 0.25-micron (K7 core) Athlon 650 requires more power at 54W than a 0.18-micron (K75 core) Athlon 800 at 48W.  Unfortunately, the Athlon at 850 should require a little over 50W of power making it the highest current generation desktop x86 processor in terms of power consumption. 

In an attempt to increase the yields on the higher clock speed Athlons, the 850 is the first Athlon to run at the increased 1.70v core voltage setting.  All of the other Athlons run at 1.60v, by bumping the core voltage around 6% AMD can guarantee stable operation at 850MHz and open the path for 900MHz+ Athlon CPUs. 

AMD versus Intel – The Reality

From the perspective of performance, the Athlon had been falling short of the Pentium III because of the advantage the Pentium III’s full speed on-die L2 cache gave it in most applications.  The choice seemed clear, as long as the price was virtually identical, the Pentium III was the faster overall CPU and was thus the better choice.  But after the heated clock speed battle at the end of last year, there were quite a few interesting points that soon became evident to the public when users actually began looking for these 800MHz CPUs.

On a clock for clock basis, the Athlon is on average 30% cheaper than its Slot-1 Pentium III counterpart.  The reason for this is apparently because of a shortage of Pentium III processors coming from Intel which has become incredibly stressful on vendors.  That 30% figure is an average – for some processors the price advantage held by the Athlon is even more.  For example, at the time of publication, the cheapest price a Pentium III 650 would go for was around $420 while an Athlon 650 retails for almost half that at $260.  The Pentium III 650 costs over 60% more than the equivalently clocked Athlon CPU!

Even Intel’s beloved FC-PGA Pentium III, currently available at 500MHz and 550MHz speed grades can’t beat AMD’s pricing.  The lowest price a Pentium III 550E (FC-PGA) can be had for is $270, which is $10 more than an Athlon 650.  While the argument can be made that the 550E can be overclocked to 733MHz and beyond, the majority of Athlon 650 owners, with the addition of an overclocking card or a motherboard that supports adjustable FSB frequencies, can easily hit the 750MHz+ mark. 

This brings us to the first conclusion about today’s CPU market: while the Pentium III, on a clock for clock basis may perform better than the Athlon, because of chip shortages and the resulting inflated prices of Pentium IIIs, the Athlon is the more affordable CPU.

Assuming that you have a reasonably large budget for your new computer and decide to go with one of the higher clock speed CPUs, finding anything above a Pentium III 733 is next to impossible for most Do-It-Yourselfers.  Unless you’re ordering through one of Intel’s major OEMs such as Dell, getting a system based on a Pentium III 750 or 800 isn’t a realistic option, regardless of how much money you are willing to spend.

On the other hand, we have seen over 40 online vendors that currently stock the Athlon 800 at a hefty cost of around $750 (at the lowest).  While $750 is quite a bit to spend on a CPU, the bottom line is, regardless of how big your budget is, you can at least get an 800MHz Athlon whereas finding an 800MHz Pentium III is almost as difficult as getting on the waiting list for this year’s Ferrari F360.  (The Ferrari carries about a 1.5 year waiting list so getting a Pentium III 800 shouldn’t be that bad, but you get the point.)

Yields on the 0.18-micron Athlons have been wonderful, which is proven by the incredible overclocking potential of the latest Athlon CPUs.  There have been reports of 500 and 550MHz parts hitting well above 750MHz, which puts them on-par with Intel’s extremely overclockable FC-PGA chips.

There is very little keeping AMD from releasing a 900MHz or even a 950MHz Athlon CPU at this point other that the fact that there is no need for one since Intel has yet to announce anything faster than 800MHz.  But judging from their recent trend of announcing processors without actually having the announcement resulting in physical availability of the chips, Intel could theoretically announce a higher clock speed part and force AMD to release the Athlon at 900MHz or above.  For this reason, we can’t make any statement as to exactly when AMD will introduce the higher speed CPUs, it’s all up to when Intel’s 866MHz Pentium III is officially announced. 

Motherboard Support

The argument against Athlon motherboard support is a faltering one simply because there are some very solid Athlon motherboards on the market.  Using the AMD 750 chipset, ASUS’ K7M and K7M-RM are excellent solutions with the latter being a nice board for a low-cost Athlon system since it is basically the K7M available in the microATX form factor.

Other than ASUS, we have Microstar and Gigabyte shipping some very solid motherboards that, if used with proper memory modules and a powerful enough power supply, are great for building a reliable and stable Athlon system. 

VIA’s recent introduction of the KX133 chipset, the first non-AMD Athlon chipset, as well as the announcement that 20 or so motherboard manufacturers would be producing motherboards based on the chipset have increased the number of options a user has when building an Athlon system. 

Mainly because of its borrowed design from VIA’s P6 level chipsets, primarily the Apollo Pro 133A, there are very few compatibility or stability issues present with the KX133.  This is a huge relief because we expected the exact opposite judging by VIA’s track record, but with the AGP core, the memory controller and the South Bridge all borrowed from previous VIA chipsets, the only problems VIA could have had would be with the implementation of the EV6 bus onto their reference design which proved to be an accomplishable task. 

Motherboard manufacturers are having a much easier time with the KX133 than the AMD 750 because of the noticeably lower cost of the KX133 as well as the 4-layer reference board design provided by VIA versus the 6-layer design most AMD 750 motherboards follow.  While Microstar recently produced a motherboard (MS-6195) based on AMD’s 4-layer Athlon motherboard design, most manufacturers will opt for VIA’s KX133 design because it is simply a cheaper design.

EPoX 7KXA - KX133

Click to Enlarge

EPoX and ASUS have KX133 designs that will soon be available that are very solid designs.  We’ve been testing both of their KX133 boards for a little while now and we can say that they are very reliable options and they will definitely be two of the most desired motherboards once they become more available in the market. 

It seems like the tables have definitely been turned here in terms of motherboard support.  While AMD used to be lagging behind with only a handful of motherboards the 133MHz FSB motherboard market isn’t doing too well right now.  Currently, the only decent performing and affordable 133MHz platform is the Apollo Pro 133A, and 133A boards are still in their stages of perfection. 

Revision CE of the VIA 694X is just now making its way into the market and it will be a couple more weeks until the new revisions get out into all 133A boards.  What Revision CE accomplishes is it fixes some AGP 4X problems that were originally in the CD revision of the North Bridge.  The performance of the 133A motherboards is noticeably less than the BX platform, this is primarily because of the memory timing issues with the memory controller of the 133A’s North Bridge.

The i820 chipset would be the perfect 133MHz FSB solution for the Pentium III if it weren’t for the fact that the chipset only has native support for RDRAM, a memory technology that is currently entirely too expensive for most users.  With RDRAM currently retailing at around three to five times the cost of SDRAM, it isn’t a viable option for most users.  Also, the yields on RDRAM have been reportedly quite bad, resulting in an even higher cost on the higher speed modules (i.e. PC800). 

Using SDRAM, the i820 chipset takes a huge performance hit, thus eliminating that option for 133MHz FSB motherboards, so for the 133MHz FSB Pentium IIIs the only real option is the Apollo Pro 133A chipset.

Intel is supposed to release their i815 chipset, with PC133 SDRAM support soon, but our sources have told us that the chipset may be released as late as June of this year, eliminating it as an option for those users that are buying systems within the next month. 

From a motherboard support standpoint, the Athlon is looking much better than it did back at its introduction 6 months ago.

Overclocking

As we mentioned in our Athlon Overclocking Guide, overclocking the Athlon can be accomplished via one of two different ways: by increasing the FSB on a motherboard that supports overclocked FSB settings or by adjusting the clock multiplier using an overclocking card such as the ones we reviewed in our roundup. 

Coupled with the improved yields on the Athlons, the newer 0.18-micron K75 core, as we mentioned earlier, is creating quite a stir in the overclocking community.  There have been numerous success stories of people taking their 0.25-micron 500 and 550MHz Athlons to 700MHz and beyond as well as reports of hitting 900MHz+ on the newer 0.18-micron cores. 

Our Athlon 850 sample was no different, we were able to hit 950MHz at the default voltage setting of 1.70v without any problems at all.  Increasing the clock multiplier to 10.0x resulted in being able to POST at 1000MHz (1GHz) as well as enter Windows at this landmark speed.  We managed to run a couple of trials of Winstone, but the system wasn’t stable enough at 1.70v.  Bumping up the core voltage to 1.80v increased the stability, but the system still wasn’t rock solid. 

The limiting factors here could have been the L2 cache speed, which was 400MHz, or heat since the CPU was being air-cooled.  The important thing to keep in mind here isn’t that the 850 failed to reliably overclock to 1000MHz using very little tweaking, the important thing is that the potential to reach 1000MHz using conventional overclocking methods is there with currently available Athlon CPUs.  Using Swiftech’s MC1000 cooler and a slightly higher core voltage settings (1.85v or 1.90v) it wouldn’t be surprising to see the setup run flawlessly at 1000MHz. 

Comparing this $800+ chip to the $2500+ Kryotech setup that accomplishes the same using their vapor phase refrigeration technology, it is obvious that the yields on the Athlon are improving.  It wouldn’t be surprising to see air-cooled clock speeds in the 1GHz+ range before the end of this year from AMD, it is all dependent on whether or not the market demands such a solution. 

The Test

 

The 50MHz clock speed increase over the Athlon 800 keeps the 850 at the top of the CC Winstone 2000 charts. Using a SuperBypass enabled AMD 750 setup, the 850 system slightly distances itself from the same chip on a KX133 motherboard. But the performance difference is far from noticeable.

Clock for clock, the Athlon is faster than the Pentium III when used on either the VIA or BX platforms, simply because the amount of available memory bandwidth on all four platforms (Athlon-750, Athlon-KX133, VIA and BX) is virtually the same across the board. Once the i820 with RDRAM is brought into the equation, the balance is tilted in favor of Intel because of the memory bandwidth advantage RDRAM holds over PC133 and PC100 SDRAM. But if you factor in the cost of RDRAM over PC133/PC100 SDRAM, the performance advantage isn't worth it at all.

In spite of the fact that the Athlon features a 2/5 speed L2 cache, it still remains quite competitive in comparison to the Pentium III with its full speed on-die L2.

BAPCo's SYSMark 2000 test is definitely appreciated by Intel because it not only shows off the advantages of RDRAM but it also takes advantage of the Pentium III's SSE instructions in a very favorably manner. While the benchmark is also 3DNow! optimized there is a noticeable difference in the standings coming from the CC Winstone 2000 benchmark to SYSMark 2000.

In any case, the Athlon still holds its own, while it isn't the highest performing solution here it provides a much greater value than the top performing Pentium III 800 using RDRAM. It is worth noting that the performance difference between running the Athlon 850 on a SuperBypass enabled AMD 750 based motherboard and a KX133 board is negligible, as is the performance difference between the AMD 750 with SuperBypass enabled and disabled (approximately 3%).

The Pentium III, with it's full speed on-die L2 cache has always held the lead over the Athlon under Quake III with the GeForce. On a clock for clock basis the Pentium III does come out on top of the Athlon, but when you compare the price to performance ratio of the Pentium III 800 (provided that you could get your hands on one) to that of the Athlon 800 or 850, you end up with the latter two offering the most bang for your buck.

It is interesting to note the effect of chipsets in the above chart. By enabling SuperBypass on the AMD 750 chipset, the performance of the Athlon 850 system immediately jumped from 10th place below the Pentium III 667 to fourth place just 0.2 fps slower than the Pentium III 733. But if you consider that the difference between the 2nd place spot of 119 fps and the 10th place spot of 112 fps is just 6%, it isn't that big of a deal.

When the Athlon was originally released it held a huge performance advantage over the competing Pentium III, but with the newer Pentium III's the difference on a clock for clock basis is in favor of Intel. For gamers, the decision should come down to a question of which is cheaper, and in that respect, the Athlon once again takes the win.

The beauty of the DDR GeForce we used in our test bed is that 60 fps at 1024 x 768 x 32 in Quake III is possible with almost any CPU because of the combination of DDR SGRAM and the GeForce's hardware T&L engine.

Unreal Tournament is very texture intensive making it a very AGP/memory intensive benchmark as well. It is because of its AGP/memory dependencies that the Pentium III 800 on the i820 comes out on top, the combination of AGP 4X transfer rates and the memory bandwidth capable of saturating AGP 4X keeps the i820 + RDRAM solution an expensive but top performing one.

The memory dependency of UT is made evident once again by the fact that the Pentium III 800 on the Apollo Pro 133A test bed does so well, whose 133MHz memory bus frequency masks the sub-par memory performance of the chipset.

The KX133 chipset with its 133MHz memory bus frequency distances itself from the old AMD 750 by a very noticeable margin as the Athlon 850 on our KX133 test bed was a full 32% faster than the same CPU on a SuperBypass enabled AMD 750 board. This is an issue we weren't aware of when we originally benchmarked the KX133 chipset using VIA's Reference KX133 motherboard but was later discovered when we tested the performance of shipping KX133 motherboards. This, coupled with the lower cost of the KX133 chipset, makes VIA's latest release the ideal home for the Athlon.

Increasing the resolution and color depth to 1024 x 768 x 32 simply increases the dependency of the benchmark on a fast memory bus and AGP performance. The standings remain virtually unchanged however because of the increased memory dependency we notice the Athlon 850 on a regular AMD 750 based board without SuperBypass support distancing itself from the rest of the crowd by a somewhat noticeable margin.

Expendable is also a very memory intensive benchmark which is why the Pentium III on the i820 test bed usually comes in first, but the higher clocked Athlon 850 snatches the crown this time as well as a close second place spot courtesy of VIA's KX133 chipset and the AMD 750's SuperBypass feature that helps to decrease memory latencies.

As you can see, without SuperBypass or the KX133 chipset, the Athlon used to lose to the Pentium III on a clock for clock basis, but armed with these two performance boosters the first two spots belong to the 850MHz flagship.

Increasing the resolution and color depth only increases the effects of having a fast memory bus, but because the effect is seen across the board, the standings remain relatively unchanged.

SPECviewperf

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation, commonly known as SPEC, managed to come up with a synthetic benchmark with real world implications. By running specific "viewsets" SPECviewperf can simulate performance under various applications. To be more accurate, according to SPEC, "A viewset is a group of individual runs of SPECviewperf that attempt to characterize the graphics rendering portion of an ISV's application." While this method is by no means capable of identifying the performance of a card in all situations, it does help to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of a particular setup.

SPECviewperf 6.1.1 currently features five viewsets: the Advanced Visualizer, the DesignReview, the Data Explorer, the Lightscape and the ProCDRS-02 viewset. Before each benchmark set we've provided SPEC's own description of that particular viewset so you can better understand what that particular viewset is measuring, performance-wise.

Each viewset is divided into a number of tests, ranging from 4 to 10 in quantity. These tests each stress a different performance element in the particular application that viewset is attempting to simulate. Since all applications focus on some features more than others, each one of these tests is weighted meaning that each test affects the final score differently, some more than others.

All results are reported in frames per second, so the higher the value, the better the performance is. The last result given for each of the viewsets is the WGM or Weighted Geometric Mean. This value is, as the name implies, the Weighted Geometric Mean of all of the test scores. The formula used to calculate the WGM is as follows:

With n being the number of tests in a viewset and w being the weight of each test expressed as a number between 0.0 and 1.0.

If you'd like to know more about why a Weighted Geometric Mean is used, SPEC has an excellent article detailing just why, here.

We ran the SPECviewperf 6.1.1 package under NT for a high-end workstation performance comparison. A noteworthy change has been made since the last Athlon CPU review, we have started using a DDR GeForce in the high-end tests after discovering that in spite of the GeForce's hardware T&L engine the card uses virtually all of the host CPU during the SPECviewperf tests thus putting a great strain on the CPU.

We also received an updated set of drivers (v3.76) for Windows NT that fully take advantage of the KX133 chipset which help to produce some very interesting benchmark results

Advanced Visualizer (AWadvs-03) Viewset

Taken from http://www.spec.org/gpc/opc.static/awadvs.htm

Advanced Visualizer from Alias/Wavefront is an integrated workstation-based 3D animation system that offers a comprehensive set of tools for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, image composition, and video output. All operations within Advanced Visualizer are performed in immediate mode with double buffered windows. There are four basic modes of operation within Advanced Visualizer:

 
• 55% material shading (textured, z-buffered, backface-culled, 2 local lights)
• 95% perspective, 80% trilinear mipmapped, modulated (41.8%)
• 95% perspective, 20% nearest, modulated (10.45%)
• 5% ortho, 80% trilinear mipmapped, modulated (2.2%)
• 5% ortho, 20% nearest, modulated (.55%)
• 30% wireframe (no z-buffering, no lighting)
• 95% perspective (28.5%)
• 5% ortho (1.5%)
• 10% smooth shading (z-buffered, backface-culled, 2 local lights)
• 95% perspective (9.5%)
• 5% ortho (.5%)
• 5% flat shading (z-buffered, backface-culled, 2 local lights)
• 95% perspective (4.75%)
• 5% ortho (.25%)

With the KX133 chipset, the Athlon 850 as well as the 800, 700 and 600MHz parts take the lead courtesy of the updated NVIDIA drivers and the 133MHz memory bus frequency offered by the KX133 chipset itself. This is a huge improvement from the professional level OpenGL performance of the Athlon on the AMD 750, even with SuperBypass enabled as you can see by the two scores at the bottom of the charts belonging to AMD 750 based systems.

Since the Apollo Pro 133A chipset uses the same AGP/memory core as the KX133, the updated NVIDIA drivers helped to push the PC133 based 133A system slightly above the more expensive RDRAM based i820 setup.

For 3D modeling and animation, as long as you stick to the KX133 chipset, the Athlon is not only the more affordable but also the higher performing solution.

DesignReview (DRV-06) Viewset

Taken from http://www.spec.org/gpc/opc.static/drv.htm

DesignReview is a 3D computer model review package specifically tailored for plant design models consisting of piping, equipment and structural elements such as I-beams, HVAC ducting, and electrical raceways. It allows flexible viewing and manipulation of the model for helping the design team visually track progress, identify interference, locate components, and facilitate project approvals by presenting clear presentations that technical and non-technical audiences can understand. There are 6 tests specified by the viewset that represent the most common operations performed by DesignReview.

The DesignReview viewset does reward the faster L2 cache of the Pentium III, however the Athlon still remains extremely competitive in spite of its 2/5 speed L2 cache. Once again, the 133A pulls ahead of the i820 platform because of the updated NVIDIA drivers as do the KX133 Athlon test beds.

There is no explanation for the extremely poor performance of the AMD 750 chipset in this test, but luckily the 750 is on its way out as KX133 based motherboards will be replacing their 750 based counterparts in the very near future. For current owners of AMD 750 based motherboards, an explanation from AMD would be the least AMD could do for their loyal customers.

Data Explorer (DX-05) Viewset

Taken from: http://www.spec.org/gpc/opc.static/dx.htm

The IBM Visualization Data Explorer (DX) is a general-purpose software package for scientific data visualization and analysis. It employs a data-flow driven client-server execution model and is currently available on Unix workstations from Silicon Graphics, IBM, Sun, Hewlett-Packard and Digital Equipment. The OpenGL port of Data Explorer was completed with the recent release of DX 2.1.

The tests visualize a set of particle traces through a vector flow field. The width of each tube represents the magnitude of the velocity vector at that location. Data such as this might result from simulations of fluid flow through a constriction. The object represented contains about 1,000 triangle meshes containing approximately 100 verticies each. This is a medium-sized data set for DX.

Lightscape (Light-03) Viewset

Taken from: http://www.spec.org/gpc/opc.static/light.htm

The Lightscape Visualization System from Discreet Logic represents a new generation of computer graphics technology that combines proprietary radiosity algorithms with a physically based lighting interface.

There are four tests specified by the viewset that represent the most common operations performed by the Lightscape Visualization System

By migrating to the KX133 chipset, the Athlon receives a healthy 134% performance boost, more than doubling the performance of the Athlon setup on the AMD 750 platform, even with SuperBypass enabled.

If it hasn't been made clear by now, when paired up with VIA's KX133, the Athlon is definitely a heavy contender in the high-end OpenGL NT workstation market.

While the i820 + RDRAM setup is catching up, the Athlon still comes out on top when teamed up with the KX133.

Conclusion

The Athlon 850 isn't anything special, it's just another Athlon with a higher clock speed, doesn't that conclusion sound all too familiar? It should, it's the same conclusion we normally come to whenever a manufacturer simply releases a higher speed grade processor. But at the same time, we always take this opportunity to look at the market as a whole and point out any helpful tips we ran across during our tests.

The Athlon platform has received sort of a rebirth with the release of VIA's KX133 chipset, while it was getting increasingly painful to watch AMD get hammered because of their 2/5 speed L2 cache, the Athlon was quickly approaching the not-recommended status simply because the Pentium III was offering greater performance at a competitive price. However, the recent price drops on AMD's part as well as the Intel CPU shortages have turned the tables in this heated competition.

The Athlon CPUs are enjoying some very nice yields, and thus the overclocking potential of these CPUs is something to be appreciated. Those users that are looking for a reasonably priced CPU that they can overclock to get even more performance out of should consider the Athlon, especially since they are now cheaper than their equally overclockable FC-PGA counterparts in the Intel world.

Gamers could go either way, with the Pentium III coming out on top of the Athlon in most gaming benchmarks the decision would normally be easy for those interested in obtaining the highest frame rates. But because of availability issues as well as cost factors, the Athlon becomes a much more intelligent purchase than the Pentium III for those of us that aren't blessed with an unlimited budget for computer upgrades. On a clock for clock basis, the Athlon is close enough to the Pentium III in gaming performance for the price difference to be a much more valid concern than a few frames here or there.

Business and Content Creation application users should be fine either way, with the Athlon being the more available and cheaper chip at this point the final decision would be up to you but don't be surprised if you end up leaning towards the Athlon when the time to write the final check comes.

The biggest surprise is the Athlon's improved NT/OpenGL performance with the KX133 chipset. For professional OpenGL applications, the Athlon is the ideal solution if and only if it is paired up with a KX133 motherboard, purchasing an AMD 750 based motherboard right now isn't a sound investment if you're looking for competitive professional level OpenGL performance under NT. The SPECviewperf benchmarks illustrate a noticeable difference in performance between the AMD 750 with SuperBypass enabled and the KX133 platforms.

The only concern we had with the Athlon 850 was the amount of power it draws, which should be a little higher than 50W. Considering that the fastest Pentium IIIs currently draw no more than 30W, we are looking at one very power hungry chip. Without proper support, the Athlon 850 could cause a definite strain on some motherboards that weren't designed for use with the chip.

As the war wages on, AMD manages to come away from this battle fairly strong in spite of the fact that the Athlon still doesn't have an on-die L2 cache running at clock speed. While AMD had demonstrated an Athlon with exactly that just a few days ago, it will be a little while longer until those CPUs make their way into the hands of the consumer. Until then, the Athlon is still a strong platform, as long as you choose your motherboard (and chipset), memory, power supply and other components properly you should be able to construct a very reliable and very quick system based on AMD's greatest to date.