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AMD AVENUE |
News about the Thunderbird is the talk on the avenue this week! | Overclocking | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Welcome to AMD Avenue! Here we have the latest news on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and their products which including the Athlon®. Also, I keep tabs on how my overclocked Athlon 500 system is working. I also state why I choose AMD over Intel. The Athlon Thunderbird which is AMD's newest high-end chip which will replace the Athlon is going to be great, it's got a faster and larger cache, experts say the Thunderbird looks like it could be faster then a Coppermine with RAMBUS!!! I don't know to much about the Athlon Thunderbird - but it sounds like that the name Thunderbird is going to stay, originally Thunderbird was just the code name. More will be posted as soon as I found out about it! NEWS FLASH: The Duron will be aimed at
the lower-end desktop systems, it was designed to compete with Intel's
Celeron and Celeron 2. It sounds li PRICING: AMD has some updates on current pricing: THE 1GHZ ATHLON IS PRICED AT: $990 that's down from $1299 in March! THE 700MHZ DURON IS PRICED AT $192! With a prices like that I think the Duron is really going to take off. That's what made AMD so successful its that there prices are so low! But, Intel will take action, they're already chopping their prices down, I bet AMD will come through, even more so with their new chips. The Duron has a 200MHz FSB (front side bus) like the Athlon. It also appears that AMD's lowest speed Athlon is now the 750, the reason, I think, is because the highest Duron goes to 700. The Athlon 750 is priced at $319 (all prices in quantity of 1000). Why I Hate Intel: You'd think I'd like Intel, especially considering that if you add an "F" to Intel you get "Fintel" which is my last name. But I don't like Intel. My whole life I used Intel chips, until I got my AMD K6/2 300. I loved it. I became more interested in AMD, and learned more about Intel too. The reason I don't like Intel is because of their practices and because of their prices. AMD prices reasonably but before AMD was a major contender Intel just dominated the market, AMD was a strong reason why computer prices fell. Also, here's a good example of Intel's bad business practices: Microsoft said they were going to use the Athlon for their console system the X-Box, but Intel stepped in and offered Microsoft their chips practically for free! If the X-Box ever makes it to the market, it will be powered by Intel not AMD. Intel has done this other times including with Gateway, but when Intel had some problems and didn't deliver on time, Gateway went with AMD anyway, and now you can buy an Athlon system from them. In fact, the only company in the top 5 computer manufactures not using AMD is Dell. Dell It's been rumored that Dell will use the Duron. My overclocked Athlon system: I have an Athlon 500 on an ASUS K7M Motherboard. Overclocking is running a chip at a higher clock speed, then the one you bought it at. I overclocked mine to 550MHz from 500 with no fans. It worked fines, but at 600MHz it won't boot. Anyway, it only provided at 10% increase in speed, so it wasn't too noticeable. Another funny thing, I couldn't burn a CD on my CD-RW while having it overclocked. To overclock it I went into my BIOS (basic input output system) and changed the FSB (front side bus) to 110MHz from 100MHz. At 112MHz you can overclock an Athlon 500 to 600. I recommended using fans for that, you could try though because all the chips are different some will be able to run at 600MHz with no fans, but some might not overclock at all. -- OVERCLOCKING VOIDS YOUR WARRANTY -- Some AMD History: AMD was founded on May 31, 1969 in Sunnyvale, Calif. working out of a living room. Now AMD is a huge company, they're stock symbol on the NYSE is: AMD there stock is worth 400% more now than it was last year! Wow! AMD'S INCREDIBLE LINE OF CHIPS:
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Recommend Overclocking Tools: 1) Rain - it's a program that makes Windows let the chip rest when nothing is happening, even though its just microsecond breaks it keeps it cooler GET IT AT: Hotfiles 2) COOLING!! I can't stress this enough, if you don't keep your overclocked system cooled, then you could fry your chip. Overclocking voids your warranty - remember that... "Heat is an over clockers worst enemy" HOW TO KEEP COOL: There are lots of ways to keep your chip cool, the most obvious way is additional fans that helps, but in some cases it might not be good enough, you can blowers too, you can even get things that suck the air in on one side of your case and out the other, if you wanna get really fancy you could water cool your system, or put it the frig. You should always watch the temperature of your chip, I'd say at about 125° F you're getting too hot, maybe 130° but don't go higher than that. I can't check my chip's temp, because my particular motherboard doesn't have a digital thermometer but most systems do, that's why I didn't overclock my system past 550 because I didn't know the temp. You need to get powerful fans too, the fans that are already on your chip won't do it - you need something with a lot more power. 3) Overclocking Websites: MORE ON OVERCLOCKING IN LATER UPDATES Article by James Fintel June 12, 2000
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TAIPEI,
TAIWAN --JUNE 5, 2000--At Computex, AMD today introduced the new AMD
Athlon™ processor featuring performance-enhancing on-chip L2 cache
memory, and announced that it has begun shipping its new AMD Duron™
processor to computer manufacturers worldwide. Compaq, Fujitsu-Siemens,
Gateway, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM and others plan to introduce systems
featuring the processor. - AMD Press Release #20108
ke
the Duron will be a good choice, I can't wait to see some benckmarks!
Quote from AMD Press Release #20108: "AMD
Duron Processor Now Shipping The new AMD Duron processor is
specifically designed to provide an optimized solution for value conscious
business and home users. The AMD Duron processor is available at speeds of
700, 650 and 600MHz. AMD is shipping the AMD Duron processor to key
computer manufacturers worldwide. The formal launch is planned for later
in June 2000" 
