>All,
>
>Does anyone know what the difference between the Athlon and the Athlon
>"Thunderbird" chips are? I can't seem to find this info on AMD's site. I
>believe that the Duron is the Athlon with smaller cache, but what is the
>T-Bird?
>
>TIA,
>Kenny
As Chad explained, the cache is the difference. On classic Athlons,
the cache ran at 300 MHz, no matter what CPU speed. The t-bird cache
operates at the CPU speed. This is possible because the cache is on
the same die as the CPU. This also allowed AMD to abandon the
ill-conceived "cell phone" CPU package and go back to the more
economical and durable PGA package, the same as the Duron uses.
I just set up a couple of 750MHz t-bird systems here at work a month
ago, and they scream. The BIOS on the ASUS A7V motherboards we are
using let you disable the on-chip cache. For fun I tried it, and
performance was 1/10 of normal.
The "official" name for the Thunderbird is "Cache enhanced
Athlon"....you have to wonder when the code names are more memorable
than the official names.
--Pete
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