Re: Dual Athlon XP 1800+ on Tyan Thunder K7 or Tiger MP anyone?

Charles Cazabon
2001-10-09T22:17:35Z

Robert Love <rml@tech9.net> wrote:
>
> It seems that any Athlon (even Durons) work fine in SMP configurations.

They work, but not "fine". There are performance issues with
Thunderbird-core Athlons in SMP configurations that may slow them down
somewhat.

> I have heard conflicting reports of what is actually different about the
> MP vs non-MP parts, with points ranging from "the MP parts are just
> certified" to that MP actually has some different internals. Whatever
> the case, I suppose the difference isn't earth-shattering and mostly
> marketing (ala Intel).

Non-MP Athlons to now have all been Thunderbird (or earlier) cores. MP
Athlons are Palomino cores. The new Athlon XP is a Palomino core. The
Palomino has specific fixes for MP operation (no more slowdowns due to
SMP), and various performance improvements.

If you don't want to fork out the extra cash for the "official" MP
Athlons, at least buy the XP variant.

Charles
--
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Charles Cazabon <linux@discworld.dyndns.org>
GPL'ed software available at: http://www.qcc.sk.ca/~charlesc/software/
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