Info from
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Chip manufactured with 0.18 micron technology with
copper interconnections
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Spitfire core based on Athlon architecture with 25
million transistors and 100sq.mm core size
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Works in specially designed mainboards for 462-pin
Socket A
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High performance 100MHz EV6 system bus
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128KB L1 cache (64KB for data and 64KB for
instructions)
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64KB L2 integrated on-die cache working at the full
processor frequency
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1.5V Vcore
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3DNow! SIMD-instructions
The Morgan Core - AMD have reached the 1Ghz
with its budget chip - the Duron. To do this the older spitfire core
was axed in favour of a new, slightly larger core they call the Morgan
core. Features in the the core have made the transistor count rise
from 25Million to 25.18 Million. The major enhancements are signified
below.
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Data Prefetch
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SSE Support
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Improved L1 TLBs
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On-die Thermal Diode
Data Prefetch - The process where the CPU
"predicts" what data it will require before it is requested.
The data is fetched from main memory and placed into the CPU's cache. This
gives a marginal speed increase. It also uses more of the FSB bandwidth
available to it. DDR memory has more of an effect now than it used to
mainly because of this.
SSE - Included in the new Duron package
is the ability to use SSE (Streaming
SIMD
Instructions) Yes the instruction set that is used in the Intel chips is
now available in the Duron. Even when playing games with SSE support you
will be shown the SSE enhanced logo's. AMD dubs this technology 3DNOW!
Professional.
Level 1 TLB's - Translation Look-aside Buffers.
In would go against what this site stands for if I decided to explain
this in detail. for more info on this goto
this
article at AnanTech. The basics is that it allows a higher hot rate by
the CPU to access memory address' in the TLB.
On-die Thermal Diode - A nice little feature that
has been a long time coming. The thermal diode reads the core
temperature of the CPU. Not a big deal you say but when used correctly
it can be used to slow down the CPU should it get to hot or even stop it
if it gets to a critical temperature. This should lengthen the CPU's
life span. Intel have been using this for quite a while now.
By far and away the best value chip currently available
on the market. It is based around the Athlon Thunderbird core to give it
supreme performance. The main difference in the High end Athlon CPU and
this the budget Duron chip is the level 2 Cache. The Duron only comes
with 64Kb which effectively slows it down. But you try telling that to
the benchmarks. The Duron really does have great performance at a low
cost. If your looking for a respectable system which can handle the
games as well, then this is the chip to build it round.
The Duron however does have the advantage of not having
unified L1 and L2 cache, therefore the L1 and L2 cache will never have
to contain the same data. What this achieves is an effective L1 cache of
192K, only that 64K of it is on the die.
The
Athlon has now been surpassed by the release of the Athlon
Thunderbird and the Athlon XP. The XP takes the reigns as the fastest
processor on the market and still cheaper than the P4. However the motherboards and cases required
have not followed suite and cost a lot more still. Good option for
anyone wanting power.