Introduction

AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Processor Review

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

It has only been two months since the release of the very first Athlon XP processor based on the Thoroughbred core, the Athlon XP 2200+. The 2200+ ran at a 1.8 GHz frequency, only 67 MHz faster than its predecessor, the 2100+ at 1.73 GHz. Over the last two years, we have seen from AMD constant releases and updates of the Athlon cores including the Thunderbird, Palomino and Thoroughbred, but all processor releases came in 67 MHz jumps and weren’t very exciting for the end user. Because AMD was at the top of the desktop market, they didn’t need to make leaps and bounds in development in the 32-bit processing arena – they were, after all, preoccupied with the upcoming release of the Hammer technology based processors.

This all changed this year as Intel’s Pentium 4 processors based on the Northwood core and an upgrade cache to 512 Kb finally was able to topple the AMD Athlon processor as the king of the benchmarks. Intel was quickly releasing faster and faster processors; now currently up to 2.53 GHz in speed. The fastest Athlon running a 1.8 GHz was a close competitor, but was falling behind quicker than most would have thought possible.

AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Processor Review - Processors 25
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Rumors had been spreading over the web this month and last month about the answers that AMD would have for Intel on the current 32-bit processor front. The Barton core from AMD will have a larger on-die cache as well, but we won’t be seeing that on this processor release. Also, AMD is deeply looking into officially supporting a 166/333 MHz front-side bus on their later Athlon XP processors, but again this is not a feature on this new release processor, but I think this is something you will be seeing rather soon. The rumors also stated that the release of a 2400+ and 2600+ Athlon XP was imminent running at 2.0 GHz and 2.13 GHz. This is exactly what you are seeing today. Did I mention that these new bits were first reported right here on Amdmb.com?

The newest flagship processor from AMD is the Athlon XP 2600+ processor running at 2.13 GHz – a 333 MHz increase from the previous top Athlon XP. For more on the how’s and why’s, keep reading.

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