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In the Forums... |
Posted: December 4, 2000 Written by: Tuan "Solace" Nguyen Specifications Speed: 950MHz Fabrication Process: 0.18 micron, Aluminum or Copper Interconnects Number of Transistors: 37 million Processor Die Size: 117 mm2 L1 Cache Size: 128KB L2 Cache Size: 256KB L2 Cache Speed: 1:1 Core Speed L2 Cache Path Width: 64bits wide L2 Cache Organization: 16-way set Associative Voltage: 1.7V Supported Chipsets: AMD 750, AMD 760, VIA Apollo KT133 In regards to the fabrication process, all Socket A processors from AMD are manufactured using a 0.18 micron process. However, not all of them use the same interconnect material. Some processors have aluminum and some have copper interconnects. AMD has a fabrication facility in Dresden, Germany where the copper based processors are produced. To tell which processor contains which type of interconnects, just examine the processor core itself. Copper processors have a bluish color core and Aluminum cores are green. L1 cache size is the largest we’ve ever seen. Intel’s Pentium 3 processor only has an L1 cache size of 32KB. This pales in comparison to AMD’s 128KB. Also, you may want to know that the Thunderbird’s L1 and L2 caches are mutually exclusive. This means data in the L1 cache is not repeated in L2. This is not the case for the Pentium 3. Having mutually exclusive cache enables the caches to operate at peak efficiency because there isn’t data redundancy. Socket A AMD’s decision to move from Slot A to Socket A was a good decision. Firstly, socket processors are easy to manufacture and also cost less. This is because there is less material to handle. And most importantly, the cache is not on-die, which also reduces the cost of getting external cache modules from 3rd party manufacturers. Secondly, electrical traces are shortened. Traces are electrical pathways but they are embedded onto the electrical board. The shorter the traces are, the stronger the electrical signals that pass through them. When designing a processor, it’s important to take the shortest route from one component to another. How fast a processor can scale depends very much on its trace lengths. Let’s take a look at some benchmarks. Benchmark System AMD “Thunderbird” Athlon 1000MHz (Socket A) AMD “Thunderbird” Athlon 950MHz (Socket A) Asus A7V rev. 1.01, BIOS 1002 512MB Micron PC133 SDRAM Cas2 Elsa Gladiac Ultra with official Detonator 3 (6.35) IBM GXP75 Ultra100 46GB HD Windows 98 SE SYSMark 2000 3Dmark2000 800x600 @ 32bpps 1024x768 @ 32bpps 1280x1024 @ 32bpps Quake 3 Arena with latest Point Release (1.25y) Demo 1 & 2: High Quality 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200 Unreal Tournament 4.32 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200 Let’s get on to how this CPU scores. |
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