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HardOCP forums, all the cool kids are doing it!!!
Hypothermia Reviews the
There will ALWAYS be debate when it comes to CPU's and videocards, this review is sure to spark a little debate among the hardcore. This is NOT about whom I like more, this is not a big fat AMD RULEZ article either. . . although, I am mighty impressed with the Athlon.
A small disclaimer to start things off. This review is PERFORMANCE based, all technical aspects and benchmarks are industry standard. I say this simply because numbers do not lie. I, on the other hand, have told a whopper or two in my time. I did not want people to think that just because AMD donated a processor to be given away in my Killer Gaming Rig contest that I would somehow give a favorable review.
There is also a small story behind this processor. About 3 months ago, I set out to do a Killer Gaming Rig e-mailed literally hundreds of companies. When it came down to processor donations the field is pretty narrow being that there are only TWO real processor companies for mainstream gaming platforms. I was contacted by Intel and told very politely that they were all out of chips, but they would keep an EYE on my site.... At the current time, you KNOW how hard it is to find any CPU over 800MHz right now. In step AMD. . . Drew Prairie of AMD says "I am e-mailing you from the WinHEC show, and as soon as I get back to my office, I will personally take apart a demo system and get you what you need". Two days later, I have a big FAT 900MHz AMD Athlon and an ASUS K7V-RM in my lap. So you can Thank Drew at AMD for this review and giveaway.
AMD Athlon 900 Specs
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
To get to 900MHz, AMD did what most overclockers have been doing forever. First, they upped the core voltage to 1.80v from the 1.70v of the 850 and 1.60v of the rest of the Athlon Family. By increasing the core voltage to 1.80v, they can increase the yield on their CPUs. 1.80v is within the Athlon's specs... truth be told, heh.. I had this one at 1.85v to get it to 1gig, so we're all good.
The next trick to keep the speed up is to change the L2 cache multiplier.Taking it to 1/3 of the core clock speed. The last time AMD lowered the multiplier was when the Athlon 750 got rid of the 1/2 L2 cache multiplier and replaced it with a 2/5 setting to keep the L2 cache speed below 350MHz. This 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 900, none the less, is fast. The big issue with the lower cache speed compared to on-die full speed cache is performance gains. . . . let me tell you, there is damn close to NO difference between an Athlon 900 and a Intel 900, except for the fact, the chances of finding an Athlon 900 is far better than trying to hunt down ANY Intel CPU running 800MHz or better.
Keep in mind, I am reviewing a processor, this one may be different from the one you have, or different from the one
HardOCP had, or SharkeyExtreme even the one
Anand may have gotten. All the numbers and benchmarks we're generated "in-house", no
pre-fab cookie cutter crap for Hypothermia's readers. ( yeah, whatever. . . )
Here's our Processor:
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1999 - 2000 by Steven G. Lynch
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