Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/498



In the past seven months, AMD has released a total of eight Athlon CPUs, ranging in speed from 500MHz up to the 850MHz monster that was released just last month on the 14th of February.  We have never seen something like this from AMD; if you remember, it took AMD forever to break the 233MHz barrier with their K6 processor when they finally released the K6-266 almost 10 months after the announcement of the K6 166, 200 and 233MHz parts. 

As a company, AMD has been known to be plagued with problems related to yield on their processors as well as delivering on time.  Many OEMs were skeptical about supporting AMD after being burned by them so many times in the past, especially with the K5. 

The OEMs bet quite a bit on the success of the Athlon, and luckily, they put their money on the right product, as the Athlon has quickly excelled to the point of becoming a direct threat to Intel’s stronghold in the performance desktop segment.  Now with the Athlon dropping in price as the clock speeds continue to increase, AMD is slowly making their way into the low-cost market segment and will further increase their exposure there by releasing a low-cost version of the Athlon in the coming months.  If Intel says that they do not feel the least bit threatened, then they’re telling you a lie. 

However, one thing that you have to keep in mind is that Intel doesn’t have to run and hide in order to compete against AMD.  Regardless of how powerful the Athlon is or how great the support is for the chip, the fact of the matter is that Intel still has the upper hand.  Because of this, AMD must work double-time in order to gain that 30% worldwide market share that CEO Jerry Sanders has reaffirmed as a goal for the company. 

The results of this intense effort from AMD to remain competitive are multi-fold.  One of the most noticeable results has been the recent clock speed battle between AMD and Intel that has been in full effect since the end of last year.  Most of those in AMD and Intel’s market buys based on two main factors: price and clock speed.  While most AnandTech readers don’t buy based on clock speed alone (I would hope so), there are millions of other computer users out there that aren’t as well informed. 

Because of this fact, OEMs like Dell and Compaq require high clock speed parts in order to remain competitive with one another.  If Dell were offering an 800MHz system and Compaq were offering a 750MHz system, the uninformed user would, more than likely, view the Dell system as being the faster of the two, regardless of what CPUs we were talking about, simply because of the higher MHz rating.

AMD is enjoying the benefits of very high yields on their Athlon parts; this is something they are definitely not used to but something they’re taking advantage of in competing with Intel on a clock for clock basis.  In the past few months Intel has been experiencing major shortages of their flagship competitor to AMD’s Athlon, the Pentium III, and AMD has been capitalizing off their shortages by making sure that their OEMs and distributors have more than enough Athlon CPUs in the higher clock speed range – 700MHz and above, an area where Intel CPUs are currently scarce in. 

Today, March 6, 2000, AMD is taking this clock speed battle to the next level.  Shortly after Intel’s demonstration of a Willamette running at 1.5GHz at their Developer Forum in Palm Springs, AMD made the decision to go ahead with the launch of their Magnolia processor.  What is Magnolia?  The codename for the launch of the Athlon CPU running at 1000MHz, or 1GHz as we have come to call it. 

If MHz sells, then AMD is about to rack up some serious sales with their 900, 950 and 1000MHz Athlon CPUs which are all being announced today. 



Athlon 900 Specifications

·        22 million transistor AMD K75 0.18-micron core

·        900MHz clock speed – 9.0x clock multiplier

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

·        512KB external on-card L2 cache running at 1/3 core speed (300MHz)

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

·        1.80v core voltage

In order to reach 900MHz, AMD made use of two tricks that overclockers are quite familiar with.  For starters, they increased the core voltage of the CPU to 1.80v which is an increase from the 1.70v of the 850 and the 1.60v of all other Athlon processors.  By increasing the core voltage to 1.80v, they can effectively increase the yield on their CPUs, and since 1.80v is within the Athlon’s range of tolerance, all should be fine. 

The second trick they used to keep the clock speed up there is to change the L2 cache multiplier once again, this time taking it down to 1/3 of the core clock speed.  The last time AMD lowered the multiplier was with the Athlon 750 as they got rid of the 1/2 L2 cache multiplier and replaced it with a 2/5 setting to help keep the L2 cache speed below 350MHz.  Why 350MHz?  It is quite costly and not worth the price/performance ratio to pursue off-die L2 cache that runs that high. 

This time around the Athlon takes on a 1/3 multiplier which, in the case of the Athlon 900, keeps the L2 cache running at 300MHz, equal to the speed of the L2 cache on the Athlon 600 which used a 1/2 multiplier.  The Athlon 900 is obviously faster than the original 600 because of the increase in clock speed; the main issue with dropping the L2 cache speed is that the improvement gained by increasing the clock speed isn’t as great as it would be had the CPU featured a full speed L2 cache. 

Athlon 950 Specifications

·        22 million transistor AMD K75 0.18-micron core

·        950MHz clock speed – 9.5x clock multiplier

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

·        512KB external on-card L2 cache running at 1/3 core speed (316.67MHz)

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

·        1.80v core voltage

The 950 features the same 1.80v core voltage setting and 1/3 L2 cache multiplier as the 900.  The L2 cache in this case operates about 6% faster than on the Athlon 900 and should, in addition to the higher clock speed, help performance a little bit. 

Athlon Magnolia 1GHz Specifications

·        22 million transistor AMD K75 0.18-micron core

·        1000MHz/1GHz clock speed – 10.0x clock multiplier

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

·        512KB external on-card L2 cache running at 1/3 core speed (333.33MHz)

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

·        1.80v core voltage

The Magnolia is the major release here.  While it is not much different than the previous two CPUs, the simple fact that it runs at 1GHz is what makes it so special.  Just three months ago we had to cool the Athlon down to –40C in order to get it to run at 1GHz, and now we have an air cooled part running at just that frequency.  That alone is impressive to say the least.

The 1GHz Athlon also suffers from the crippling of the 1/3 L2 cache multiplier that keeps its L2 cache running at about 333MHz which is just slightly slower than the 850’s 340MHz L2. 

So to those that may have been expecting otherwise, the 900, 950 and 1GHz Athlons are not based on the new Thunderbird core we have been waiting for and still use an external L2 cache.



AMD versus Intel – One Month Later

Just one month ago, we took a look at the availability of Athlon CPUs in comparison to their Pentium III counterparts in our review of the Athlon 850.  According to Intel representatives that we talked to while attending their Developer Forum, the shortages of the Pentium III would begin to clear up.  Well, have they?

The Pentium III 800 is finally more readily available than it was last month, we have seen the CPU pop up in a number of OEM systems and have managed to track down a few vendors online that carry the CPU in stock for between $800 and $900, although a couple of vendors were willing to part with the CPU at the “low” cost of $1000. 

In contrast, we have seen the Athlon 850 and Athlon 800 gain much more exposure than their 800MHz Pentium III counterpart, both in systems and out of them.  Compaq and Gateway are already offering systems based on the 850MHz CPUs for under $3000, and at the same time, we have seen about 20 online vendors carrying the 850 for around $800, if not less.  If 20 vendors isn’t enough, we have counted over 50 online vendors that carry the 800MHz parts, which are currently priced between $500 and $600. 

Once you get below the 800MHz clock speed for AMD the price drops considerably.  The 750 could be had anywhere between $350 - $450 and the 700 was everywhere for as low as $250, but it usually fell around $325.  The Athlon’s counterpart, the Pentium III ran for about $650 for the 750MHz version and between $400 and $500 for the 733/700MHz parts. 

On the lower end, the Pentium III 600 has dropped to below $300 while the Athlon 600 is going for $200 or less. 

There is still a clear difference in price between the Athlon and the Pentium III, but it is not nearly as bad as it was just one month ago when we took a look at the Athlon 850.  The rule still stands that while the full speed on-die L2 cache of the Pentium III may give it a clock for clock performance advantage, the price to performance ratio of the Athlon is continuing to give AMD the edge, especially with the release of the KX133 chipset from VIA that helped to drop motherboard prices and increase performance in the professional level OpenGL arena. 



AMD versus Intel - Reaching 1GHz

It should be common knowledge by now that Intel will soon be following AMD’s release of the 1GHz Athlon with the announcement of a 1GHz Pentium III, and both manufacturers actually used similar techniques in reaching the 1000MHz mark.

We contacted Intel about their 1GHz launch, and according to them, they are concentrating on OEM system availability of the 1GHz part.  They are aiming to have 1GHz systems shipping at launch but in limited volumes.  It is not clear what ‘limited volumes’ will actually translate into, but it seems like if you’re willing to pay the price and if you can find one, you’ll be able to purchase a 1GHz Pentium III system this month. 

Most AnandTech readers won’t be chasing after OEM systems, rather you’ll be wondering when you can get your hands on one of these chips.  Intel is sticking to their roadmap and you won’t see a 1GHz Pentium III until the third quarter of this year, so expect to see boxed 1GHz processors from Intel around September. 

AMD is aiming at the OEM market as well and according to our sources at AMD, the plan is to have a launch with OEM partners offering “build to order” systems (things like customizable systems from Gateway, etc…) that will begin shipping within a month. The situation is a tad different for Compaq and Gateway which are AMD's lead partners. You will be able to order 1GHz systems from them this week and have them here shortly thereafter since AMD is committing their entire March production to their lead partners.

Orders are currently being taken on 900/950MHz Athlon parts and lead partners should begin offering them shortly for delivery this month. End users should also expect to be able to get their hands on 900/950MHz parts this month as well. But here's the killer, AMD will actually have Athlon CPUs available to the general market (i.e. you can pick one up from an online vendor) in 2nd quarter. If the 900 and 950MHz parts are due out this month, and provided that there isn't a shortage of Athlon parts, don't be surprised to see 1GHz Athlon parts surfacing in the next couple of months. According to AMD, they expect to have hundreds of thousands of the 900/950/1000MHz parts available in Q2, a full quarter ahead of Intel.

Yield and heat are two pretty big issues when talking about hitting 1GHz, for both AMD and Intel.  In terms of maintaining high enough yields, both manufacturers have increased the core voltage of their CPUs in order to make them “1GHz-ready.”  Intel’s Pentium III Coppermine core received a 3% increase in core voltage, putting it at 1.70v for the 1GHz parts while AMD’s Athlon got a 6% boost in core voltage over the Athlon 850 (12.5% over the original 1.60v Athlon) which puts it at 1.80v for AMD’s 1GHz CPU. 

In addressing issues of heat, Intel’s OEMs are outfitting their 1GHz CPUs with “larger heatsinks” capable of handling the added heat dissipated by the higher clock speed Pentium III.  For the Athlon, AMD supplied us with a chip that featured a noticeably more efficient heatsink design than what they usually send us. 


Cooling the Athlon's L2

 

Instead of just a standard heatsink/fan combo, AMD outfitted with our test sample 1GHz CPU with a Foxconn unit that featured two fans.  The heatsink itself made complete contact with the L2 cache modules on the processor itself, something that was only somewhat accomplished by the heatsinks that AMD used on their evaluation processors in the past.  What’s the point of mentioning what sort of heatsink AMD supplied us with for our testing?  It indicates that the cooling demands of the 1GHz processor are definitely more than what we’re used to with the Athlon; while it’s still not unmanageable it’s something to take into account when building a system. 



Motherboard Support

In spite of last month’s release of the KX133 chipset, we have yet to see many motherboards based on the chipset available for purchase.  The EPoX 7KXA has been spotted in some areas, but its presence is definitely far from widespread, luckily we’re about to see an influx of KX133 based motherboards into the market.

In our CeBIT 2000 coverage, we managed to get pictures of twenty Athlon motherboards that are due out for release soon, most of which were based on the KX133 chipset.  We have actually had one of those boards in the lab for quite some time now, the ASUS K7V-RM.

We unfortunately weren’t allowed to talk about the board until now, but now that we can, it’s time to say that this motherboard is a very solid KX133 board.  While it’s a microATX board, a full ATX version is due out soon, the K7V, and it should perform just as well.  The K7V-RM is so solid that AMD even chose to outfit their evaluation systems with the motherboard which is a position previously held by the AMD 750 based Gigabyte GA-7IX. 

ASUS K7V-RM - KX133


Click to Enlarge

Expect a review of the K7V-RM this week.

Overclocking

The biggest question you’re probably asking yourself right now is how far can the 1GHz processor be overclocked?  Unfortunately, because of the current design of the Athlon, it features clock multipliers no higher than 10.5X.  This means that even with the aid of an overclocking card you won’t be able to take the 1GHz CPU up any higher than 1050MHz.  By increasing the FSB on a motherboard like the K7M or K7V-RM you are able to push it a little higher, but for the most part, overclocking the 1GHz chip isn’t going to be an incredible experience. 

If you’re looking for a chip you can overclock to 1GHz, look for the Athlon 900 which should be able to hit 1GHz with a bit of work. 



The Test

Windows 98 SE Test System

Hardware

CPU(s)

Intel Pentium III 800E
Intel Pentium III 700E
Intel Pentium III 600E

Intel Pentium III 800
Intel Pentium III 733
Intel Pentium III 667
Intel Pentium III 600EB
AMD Athlon 850
AMD Athlon 800
AMD Athlon 700
AMD Athlon 600
AMD Athlon 500
Motherboard(s) ABIT BE6 AOpen AX6C Tyan Trinity 400 Rev D. Gigabyte GA-7IX ASUS K7V-RM
Memory

128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM

128MB PC800 Samsung RDRAM
128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM
Hard Drive

IBM Deskstar DPTA-372050 20.5GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA 66

CDROM

Phillips 48X

Video Card(s)

NVIDIA GeForce 256 32MB DDR (default clock - 120/150 DDR)

Ethernet

Linksys LNE100TX 100Mbit PCI Ethernet Adapter

Software

Operating System

Windows 98 SE

Video Drivers

NVIDIA GeForce 256 - Detonator 3.76 @ 1024 x 768 x 16 @ 75Hz

Benchmarking Applications

Gaming

GT Interactive Unreal Tournament 4.04 UTbench.dem
idSoftware Quake III Arena demo001.dm3
Rage Software Expendable Timedemo

Productivity
BAPCo SYSMark 2000
Ziff Davis Content Creation Winstone 2000

 

Windows NT SP6.1a Test System

Hardware

CPU(s)

Intel Pentium III 800E
Intel Pentium III 700E
Intel Pentium III 600E

Intel Pentium III 800
Intel Pentium III 733
Intel Pentium III 667
Intel Pentium III 600EB
AMD Athlon 850
AMD Athlon 800
AMD Athlon 700
AMD Athlon 600
AMD Athlon 500
Motherboard(s)
ABIT BE6
AOpen AX6C
Tyan Trinity 400 Rev D.
Gigabyte GA-7IX
EPoX K7XA
Memory

128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM

128MB PC800 Samsung RDRAM
128MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM
Hard Drive

IBM Deskstar DPTA-372050 20.5GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA 66

CDROM

Phillips 48X

Video Card(s)

NVIDIA GeForce 256 32MB DDR (default clock - 120/150 DDR)

Ethernet

Linksys LNE100TX 100Mbit PCI Ethernet Adapter

Software

Operating System

Windows NT4 Service Pack 6.1a

Video Drivers

NVIDIA GeForce 256 - Detonator 3.76 @ 1024 x 768 x 32 @ 75Hz
VIA AGP GART Drivers v4.00 was used for all VIA based boards

Benchmarking Applications

Professional

SPECviewperf 6.1.1



It's no surprise that the three fastest CPUs in this test are the 900, 950 and 1000MHz Athlons. The 18% increase in clock speed over the 850 at 1GHz results in a performance gain of about 6% which is being limited by the 1/3 speed L2 cache of the Athlon. The same is true for the 900 and 950MHz parts, we are beginning to see the limitations of the K75 core, Thunderbird where are you?



It's no surprise that the three fastest CPUs in this test are the 900, 950 and 1000MHz Athlons. The 18% increase in clock speed over the 850 at 1GHz results in a performance gain of about 6% which is being limited by the 1/3 speed L2 cache of the Athlon. The same is true for the 900 and 950MHz parts, we are beginning to see the limitations of the K75 core, Thunderbird where are you?



The situation in Quake III is a bit closer than in the previous two tests as the Athlon + DDR GeForce combination doesn't prove to be as fast as the same video card on an Intel platform. Because of this, the 1GHz Athlon is just slightly faster than the Pentium III 800 and the 950/900MHz parts fall behind by a few fps. If you factor the cost of the RDRAM on that test system into the equation then the next best thing is the Pentium III 800/100 on a BX platform which is just slightly outperformed by an Athlon 900.

The DDR GeForce is fill rate limited at 1024 x 768 x 32, so the scores are virtually identical to one another.



UnrealTournament is very memory intensive as well as being a good CPU benchmark. The benefits of the Pentium III's full speed on-die L2 cache can be seen here where it, at 800MHz on a 133A board, performs within 0.3 fps of the 1GHz Athlon. One thing that is worth noting is that the Athlon 900 with it's slower 300MHz L2 cache just barely outperforms the 850MHz part with 340MHz L2 cache.

For the first time in the entire comparison the 1GHz Athlon falls behind the two RDRAM equipped test beds, this is the perfect illustration of what RDRAM's incredible bandwidth can do when coupled with the full speed L2 cache of the Pentium III.

From a price to performance ratio standpoint, the Athlon at 1000MHz would still be a better value than a Pentium III 733/133 on an i820 setup because of the sheer cost of RDRAM.



We've always known Expendable to be a very CPU limited benchmark more than anything else and in video card reviews we've normally discounted that as a downside to using the benchmark. But in this case it does an incredible job of showing off the potential of the Athlon CPU as it completely dominates at 1GHz offering very impressive performance. Then again, what can you expect when you're running at 1000MHz?

We get a similar situation here, with a 5% drop in frame rate because of the jump to 1024 x 768 x 32.



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%)

The Awadvs test mainly focuses on the performance of the graphics subsystem meaning that in this case it is stressing the DDR GeForce we used in the setup which is why you don't see a huge difference in performance among the processors. The entire Athlon series, on the KX133 platform, does seem to literally own the top eight spots.

We also see the negative effects of the AMD 750 chipset which takes the performance of the Athlon down to the low 50's in this benchmark. While we have known about this anomaly for quite some time, we have yet to hear from neither AMD nor NVIDIA about the odd performance issues. Courtesy of the new 3.76 drivers for the GeForce, the KX133 platform pulls far ahead of the older AMD 750 platform, even with SuperBypass enabled. Since the KX133 is based on the same AGP core as the VIA 133A, the latter receives a performance boost as well.



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 DRV-06 viewset is definitely more CPU dependent than the Awadvs test and in this case, the Athlon at 1GHz shows an improvement of 10% over the Pentium III 800/133 which is significant for this particular test.

Once again, the 133A pulls ahead of the i820 platform because of the updated NVIDIA drivers as do the KX133 Athlon test beds.



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 vertices each. This is a medium-sized data set for DX.

One again we have a case of the Athlon coming out on top not only at the higher clock speeds but at the lower ones too. The 1GHz CPU obviously comes out on top here, but even the "slow" 600MHz Athlon part comes out ahead of the Pentium III 800/133.

In this case, buying a motherboard that uses the KX133 chipset rather than an AMD 750 based board is the best way to improve your performance in professional level OpenGL applications although having a 1GHz Athlon doesn't hurt ;)



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

The Lightscape test stresses the abilities of the CPU quite a bit while at the same time taking advantage of the larger FSB and memory buses offered by the i820, 133A and KX133 platforms. Of course, the Athlon at 1GHz comes out on top once again.



ProCDRS-02 Viewset

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

The ProCDRS-02 viewset is a complete update of the CDRS-03 viewset. It is intended to model the graphics performance of Parametric Technology Corporation's CDRS industrial design software.

For more information on CDRS, see http://www.ptc.com/icem/products/cdrs/cdrs.htm

The viewset consists of ten tests, each of which represents a different mode of operation within CDRS. Two of the tests use a wireframe model, and the other tests use a shaded model. Each test returns a result in frames per second, and a composite score is calculated as a weighted geometric mean of the individual test results. The tests are weighted to represent the typical proportion of time a user would spend in each mode.

All tests run in display list mode. The wireframe tests use anti-aliased lines, since these are the default in CDRS. The shaded tests use one infinite light and two-sided lighting. The texture is a 512 by 512 pixel 24-bit color image.

And to finish things off we have another example of the Athlon excelling in performance and the 1GHz part simply annihilating the nonexistent competition. The ProCDRS-02 test does seem to gain some performance improvement from the increased memory bandwidth offered by RDRAM but it still isn't enough to put the Pentium III 800/133 i820 system on-par with the cheaper Athlon at 800MHz on a KX133.



Conclusion

Without resorting to supercooling techniques, rather an increase in the core voltage and a decrease in L2 cache speed, AMD has finally hit the magical 1GHz mark. This can be considered to be a pretty big milestone in x86 history, while Kryotech was actually the first to hit 1GHz with the Athlon, AMD was the first to do it using conventional cooling methods. The users that run the most demanding professional level software including OpenGL applications will definitely appreciate the raw power the 1GHz Athlon and its 900/950MHz siblings bring to the table without having to resort to super cooling methods, but for most users the 1GHz mark doesn't hold much value other than its cool-factor.

It is somewhat unbelievable that you will be able to go online and purchase a 1GHz system by the end of this week, but for us and most AnandTech readers, the big question is when can we see an Athlon with a full speed on-die L2 cache? The answer is just around the corner, as it has been rumored that the Thunderbird will be released within the next 2 - 3 months. But how well will the Thunderbird perform?

What we have just provided you with are benchmarks of AMD's latest 1GHz offering, now according to our sources, simply adding the 256KB of on-die L2 cache to the 0.18-micron Athlon should improve performance by 10 - 20%. If you're interested in speculating how fast a 1GHz Thunderbird would be, try multiplying some of those 1GHz scores by a factor of 1.10, 1.15 or 1.20. Impressive, no?

At 1GHz the Athlon is quite impressive as it is, but it's still not as fast as we'd like it to be. For users other than those in the professional arena where every last bit of performance counts and influences how well you can do your job, most of us can wait until the Thunderbird is released in the next 2 - 3 months and truly redefines performance for the Athlon. Until then, for overclockers especially, it makes the most sense to go out and purchase a lower clocked Athlon at a cheaper price, invest in an overclocking card and try to get as close to 1GHz as possible.

For those that want the hottest Athlon on the block, 1GHz systems will be available shortly with CPUs due out next quarter not to mention the 900/950MHz parts that should be available this month. For the patient or budget restricted, the Thunderbird will be every bit worth the wait if you can manage to control yourself while these three new CPUs go on sale.

As for Intel, AMD just served, the ball is in Intel's court now. Later this week they will respond with a 1GHz announcement of their own without deviating from their current plan to mass produce 1GHz Pentium III's in Q3-2000. Until then, the monitors at AMD are displaying a 'Waiting for reply...'

For more benchmarks on the 1GHz Athlon, read Sharky Extreme's review of the 1GHz Athlon.

How it Rates

AnandTech CPU Rating

Rating (x/10)

Performance

The new Athlon CPUs are definitely the fastest CPUs ever to come out of AMD, and currently they are the fastest x86 contenders in the market. While that may change with the release of competing products from Intel, they are still very high performers.

While the 1GHz Athlon doesn't offer much for the gamer or the home office user, for the professional, the 1GHz Athlon cannot be touched as long as it is paired with a KX133 based motherboard.

The performance of the CPU is hindered by its 1/3 L2 cache divider which is why we give it a rating of 8.0 in this category and not the 8.5 it would otherwise have received.

8.0

Features

The Athlon processor itself has quite a few features that help distinguish it from competing products, such as its 100MHz DDR (200MHz) EV6 FSB, its powerful FPU, etc.. unfortunately because of the external L2 cache that even the 1GHz Athlon is still boasting the rating is dropped to 6.5.

6.5

Price

For CPUs price isn't the main issue, it is the particular CPU's price to performance ratio. For the Athlon, especially with the recent price drops this ratio is quite high giving AMD a fairly good rating here.

The 900 - 1000MHz parts covered here are definitely not the most cost efficient since they are recent introductions which is what keeps the rating at 6.5.

6.5

Availability

The Athlon has enjoyed very nice availability in recent times, especially when compared to the Pentium III.

With AMD devoted to supplying their lead OEMs with 1GHz Athlon parts this month and the general public being able to pick up 900/950MHz parts later this month as well, the availability of these CPUs shouldn't be a problem at all.

As far as yield goes, AMD has been very successful with yields on the Athlon CPUs and these new CPUs are going to continue that trend.

7.5
Overall Rating
8.0

Note: Overall Rating is not an average

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