crudfree

Does a larger cache help the game run faster? I've just swapped a
1300Mhz Duron processor for a 1100Mhz Athlon, yet the game seems to
run faster than before, and plays better.

This being the case, has anyone here bought a Barton cored Athlon, and
if so, what's it like and how does it play?

Rgds.

nick mason

In article <20005f81.0312011409.34c12b3f@posting.google.com>,
crudfree@hotmail.com says...

On Friday my power supply died taking the mobo and CPU with it. I was
using an XP2400+ which has a 256Kb Cache and a 266Mhz FSB running at
2Ghz.

My new CPU is the XP2500+ Barton, 512Kb of Cache 333Mhz FSB but only
running at 1.83Ghz

Following AMDs numbering logic the XP2500+ should be a bit faster than
the XP2400+ but in reality it seems much faster.

It's much better than the old chip.
--

Regards

Nick

adrian steiner

Larger Cache usually makes a program run faster.
In the memory hierarchy, there's the CPU cache, RAM, Hard Disk. The
first being very fast and expensive, the last slow and cheap (in terms
of $/Byte). When the CPU runs, it has to store the results of it's
computations somewhere. First in the cache, if it's full in the RAM and
finally on the HD. With more cache the CPU can read/write more from the
fast memory. When data needs to be read/written to RAM the CPU needs to
wait until it's done.
That's the reason why CPU clock frequency isn't the only thing that
matters for speed. Cache size also does. A Duron simply spends more time
waiting than an Athlon.
On my old Pentium 75 with 8 MB RAM some software runs darn slow. Reason:
Many Harddisk accesses for swapping. Same as above, just on an different
level.

Cheers,
Adi

crudfree

Thanks for the replies.

I'm on the verge of upgrading mobo and CPU so this info will come in
handy. Meanwhile I may have a go at re-enabling cache on the Duron as
it won't really matter if I mess up.

Join the L1 bridges as I understand it. We'll see what happens :-)

Rgds.

crudfree

Thanks for the info.

I'm on the verge of an upgrade - was to be to a 2400XP but I may see
if I can reach a 2500 instead now. I may also tinker with the Duron
and see if I can open some more cache. If it burns out then it doesnt
matter.

Rgds.

adrian steiner

_?_
You mean, you believe AMD takes Athlon CPUs and disables some kB of
cache on it and then sells it as Durons? Or am I getting your point of
view wrong? Sorry, but that sounds really ridiculous!

Cheers,
Adi

william j. keaton

Not at all ridiculous! CPUs are often branded by what speeds they will pass
spec at. One wafer might yield 2 GHz parts, with a few that will only run at
1.8 gig. A Duron might just be an Athlon that failed the cache test! Very
common in the past, not sure how things stand these days. But not out of the
question.

WJaKe

crudfree

See
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20030908004407.html
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/amd/unlocktbred/unlocktbredp1.htm
http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/t-bird.php

It seems possible, so I'll give it a go. If you do a google search on
Duron and overclock you'll find a fair few articles about it.

One sugestion was that at one point AMD were running low on stock of
lower speed processors so to try to avoid losing that end of the
market to Intel they partialy disabled a stock of Athlons in order to
fill the gap in their Duron supplies, thereby keeping their customers
happy. Bear in mind that a non-happy AMD customer = a new Intel
customer.

adrian steiner

Ok, it doesn't sound ridiculous as I first thought. As William posted,
better sell a CPU as a slower one than throwing it away.
Thanks for the URLs Fred, I'll have a closer look at my Athlon
Thunderbird 900MHz. Possibly it could run im my Asus A7V motherboard at
1GHz. I just shouldn't forget the additional heat being produced...

Cheers,
Adi