AMD Athlon
Athlon is the generic name applied to a series of different x86 processors designed and manufactured by AMD. The original Athlon, or Athlon Classic was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and, in a first, retained the initial performance lead it had over Intel's competing processors for a significant period of time. AMD has continued the Athlon name with the Athlon 64, a next-generation processor featuring AMD64 technology.
Athlon Classic
The Athlon made its debut on August 21, 1999. The name "Athlon" was chosen by AMD as short for "decathlon." The original Athlon core revision, code-named "K7" (in homage to its predecessor, the K6), was available in speeds of 500 to 650 MHz at its introduction and was later sold at speeds up to 1000 MHz. The processor was compatible with the industry-standard X86 instruction set and plugged into a motherboard slot mechanically similar to but not pin-compatible with the Pentium II's Slot 1.
Internally, the Athlon was essentially a major reworking of the K6 processor core designed for compatibility with the EV6 bus protocol (first used on DEC's Alpha 21264 RISC processor). AMD dramatically improved the floating-point unit from the K6 and put a large 128K level 1 cache on the chip. Like Intel's Pentium II and Katmai Pentium III, there was 512k of secondary cache, mounted externally to the chip itself but still within the CPU module, and running at a lower speed than the core: initially half-speed, but later less than this (because of cost and availability issues with very high speed cache RAM).
The resulting processor was the fastest x86 in the world. Various different versions of the Athlon held this distinction continuously from August 1999 until January 2002.
In commercial terms, the Athlon Classic was an enormous success - not just because of its own merits, but also because the normally dependable Intel endured a series of major production, design, and quality control issues at this time. In particular, Intel's transition to a 0.18 micrometre production process, starting in late 1999 and running through to mid-2000, was chaotic, and there was a severe shortage of Pentium III parts. Many long-time Intel-only PC dealers found the combination of the Athlon's excellent performance and reasonable pricing tempting, and the prospect of being able to get stock in commercial volumes impossible to resist. In contrast, AMD enjoyed a remarkably smooth process transition, had ample supplies available, and Athlon sales went from strength to strength.
Athlon Thunderbird
The second-generation Athlon, the Thunderbird, debuted on June 4, 2000. This version of the Athlon shipped in a more traditional pin-grid array (PGA) format that plugged into a socket ("Socket-A") on the motherboard. It was sold at speeds ranging from 700 to 1400 MHz. The major difference, however, was cache design. Just as Intel had done when they replaced the old Katmai Pentium III with the much faster Coppermine P-III, AMD replaced the 512k external reduced-speed cache of the Athlon Classic with 256K of on-chip, full-speed cache. (As a general rule, more cache improves performance, but faster cache improves it further still.)
The Thunderbird was AMD's most successful part since the Am386DX-40 ten years earlier. Mainboard designs had improved considerably by this time, and the initial trickle of Athlon mainboard makers has swollen to include every major manufacturer. Their big new fab in Dresden came on-line, allowing further production increases, and the process technology was improved by a switch to copper interconnects. In October 2000 the Athlon "C" was introduced, raising the mainboard front side bus speed to 133MHz (dual channel for 266MHz-effective) and providing roughly 10% extra performance over the "A" model Thunderbird.
Athlon XP
In performance terms, the Thunderbird had easily eclipsed the rival Pentium III, and the early Pentium 4s were a long way off the pace, but gradually clawed their way closer. The 1.7GHz P4 (April 2001) served notice that the Thunderbird could not count on retaining performance leadership forever, and thermal and electricity-consumption issues with the Thunderbird design meant that it wasn't practical to take it past 1400MHz (even that speed thermally marginal).
AMD released the third major Athlon version on May 14, 2001, code-named "Palomino". This version, the first to include the SSE instruction set from the Intel Pentium III as well as AMD's 3DNow!, was introduced at speeds between 1333 and 1733 MHz. The major changes were optimisations to the core design to increase efficiency by roughly 10% over a Thunderbird at the same clock-speed, and power consumption reductions to allow it to be clocked faster.
The "Palomino" did have one major flaw, however: it ran very hot. Its SMP enabled version, the Athlon MP entry (which was the first to carry the Palomino core, not the Athlon XP), was initially hammered due to heat issues with the Palomino core.
The Athlon XP was marketed using a PR rating system, which compared its performance to an Athlon Thunderbird. Because the Athlon XP has much higher IPC (instructions per clock) than the Pentium 4 (and about 10% higher than a Thunderbird), it is more efficient and delivers the same level of performance at a lower clock-speed, or higher performance at the same speed.
The fourth-generation Athlon, the Thoroughbred core, was released June 10, 2002 at 1.8 GHz, or 2200+ on the PR rating system. Two new Athlon XP's, the 2400+ running at 1933 MHz and the 2600+ running at 2066 MHz, were announced on August 21. 2700+ and 2800+ Thoroughbred-core parts were also announced, but became available in insiginficantly small quantities.
The "Thoroughbred" core was on a 0.13 micrometre process, unlike the 0.18 micrometre process of its "Palomino" predecessor. Other than the micrometre process, the Thoroughbred design was not different from the "Palomino" in any way. AMD did have initial troubles with the "Thoroughbred A" revision having substantial heat issues, which were solved in the "B" revision.
Fifth-generation Athlon Barton-core parts released in early 2003 featured PR ratings of 2500+, 2600+, 2800+ and 3000+. While not faster than Thoroughbred-core processors in megahertz terms, they earned their higher PR-rating-per-megaherz from featuring additional full-speed on-chip cache RAM. The Thorton core is a variant of the Barton with half the cache disabled.
Some AMD proponents claim that these new parts regained performance leadership for the Athlon, but this remained in doubt. Much controversy surrounds the benchmarks which are used to measure performance leadership. In particular, industry insiders point out that some tests have been deliberately skewed in Intel's favour - notably the BAPCo tests, which were written by Intel's own engineers.
Most observers considered that the Athlon was no longer the fastest x86 in the world, believing that Intel's Pentium 4 overtook the Athlon XP early in 2002 and held its until February 2003, with the 3.06 GHz P4 benchmarking slightly faster than the Athlon 2700+. At the time, the question was moot: AMD had yet to deliver the 2700+ and 2800+ in commercial quantities; they did not begin to ship in volume until well into the first quarter of 2003. However, as the initially troublesome transition to the 0.13 micrometre process neared completion, AMD began producing large numbers of 0.13 micrometre parts in the 1700 to 2400 speed grades (usually a sign that faster grades are not far away) and, in mid February 2003, announced the Athlon XP 3000+ to ship in volume in early March of 2003. Pending an Intel reply, the 3000+ had according to AMD reclaimed the "fastest X86 in the world" title for the Athlon once again. However reviewers' opinions on this were split, with most believing the top Intel part to still be faster.
The latest model, Athlon XP 3200+, works with a faster 400MHz (200MHz DDR) front side bus and beats Pentium 4 in many applications.
For a list of all Athlon XP models see List of AMD Athlon XP Microprocessors.
Mobile Athlon XP
Mobile Athlon XP is a version, which power use has been reduced. It's designed to intelligently adjust multipliers and bus speeds by the need of processing power.
It also features the Power Now! technology.
Athlon 64
Athlon 64 is based on the 64-bit x86-64 (now known as AMD64) "Hammer" technology. This will be the home consumer version of the Opteron chip, both belonging to the AMD64 family. There are two variants: Athlon 64 and Athlon 64-FX. The Athlon 64-FX is similar to the Opteron and more powerful than the standard Athlon 64. Athlon 64 will be able to run 32 bit, 16 bit, and AMD's own 64 bit assembly code. Currently, Linux, FreeBSD, and NetBSD support the 64-bit mode of Athlon 64, and Microsoft says it is developing a 64 bit version of Windows.
See also
This article contains some material from the "K7" article from FOLDOC, used with permission.
Referenced By
Advanced Micro Devices | Intel Pentium 4 | List of AMD CPU slots and sockets | List of AMD microprocessors | Pentium 4 | Pentium IV
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