Duron, Thunderbird

[msanc024]

Which one would you get to build a system with SDRAM ?

1- Duron 1'2Ghz
2- Athlon 1Ghz (133 FSB)

Is a Celeron 1200 (Tualatin core) a better choice, considering overclocking capabilities?

[gibsinep]

I would go with the Duron 1.2. Altougth it has less cache it has a new core and is a bit faster in mhz. It would also run cooler so that would be better for OC

Plus it may be cheaper.

Dont go with a celery. I personally dont like them and think they are real underperformes.

both AMD chips would out-perform the celery.

[NDD]

Tualatin will be (almost, slightly slower) on par with Athlon/XP at same clock speeds, Duron will be slightly slower than Tualatin.
It's up to you which one to get, what's the type of the upgrade you wanna do and what apps you'll run mostly ?

[araaraara]

I thought that nowadays the new Durons (morgans) were almost equal in price to the old Athlons (thunderbirds), at least in Canada anyways. You should be able to get 1.2ghz Athlon for the same price as a 1.2ghz Duron.

If you are building a new system and there is a big difference between Athlon and Duron prices, then I would get a motherboard like the ECS K7S5A and the Duron 1.2ghz. This combination is very cheap, and has a lot of upgradability as it can go to DDR ram and AthlonXP's later.

[Bullet-Man-2]

t-bird =)

OCing with 133 SDRAM & 266 FSB t-bird = hevan :cool:

[otheos]

Well the 1.2G Celeron is certainly slower than the Duron 1.2G.

Now, the Duron offers the data prefetch and SSE, but the TBird has 4x the cache and runs 266Mhz bus.

So, whatever's cheaper basically, but the Athlon will make a better dog for compiling, non optimised use.

The 266 bus is not an issue, just unlock the Duron and run it at 9x133 instead of 12x100.

[darkyoda2]

I know that it is not really related with the original subject but I saw the last reply. How can u unlock a Duron to run at 133 Mhz FSB??

[richard_cocks]

Same way as an athlon for the older durons. For the new durons you can't do this, but the older ones, just do the "pencil trick" It is well documented around the web, even here on sysopt.com

Personally I failed but I gave up too soon I think as I just needed a better pencil I think.

[Bullet-Man-2]

pencil trick. =\. My mom lets me change to 100-133, and set the multiplyers to anything I need.

[richard_cocks]

I wouldn't increase from 100 to 133 until you can "underclock" it to the required multiplier first, otherwise you could suddenly set it from 900 to 1167MHz in one huge OC fryup :D

[darkyoda2]

I'll check for the pencil trick on the web. I heard of it but never think to know more about. I'll check more carefully. Thanks!

[namrak]

Personally, I'd go with the Duron over the Athlon. Er, come to think of it. I already went this route. :D I asked myself the same question not too long ago and finally went the Duron (Morgan) 1GHz route. Even though the cost difference between the two are mere dollars, the Duron IS cheaper and has an updated core bringing the Duron to parity with the Athlons. I also figured that if I fried the cpu, I could always pick up another Morgan processor since most stores are more apt to carry them than older Athlons at specific speeds.

In anycase, the pencil trick is easier, but I went the more permanent route by using rear window defogger fluid. I've read a few times that the pencil trick is not a permanent solution. Anyway, get yourself a magnifying glass as it will help you unlock whatever AMD processor you purchase. G'luck!

[Bogg]

My duron 1.3GHz duron (morgon)


http://hem.passagen.se/pythonx/px/duron13.jpg

It there beats the 1.2Ghz TBird...

[otheos]

Seriously, no, the Tbird 1.2 (266MHz) is faster than the 1.3G Duron (200Mhz), forget what a simplistic synthetic benchmark says.

BTW never buy the top of the range. The 1.3G Duron is seriously overpriced.

[Bogg]

It's not a duron 1.3@200Fsb...
It runs at 1.2@139 (278Mhz EV6) and mulitplier at 9.5
So, yes, it should beat a 1.2Ghz tbird...
Well, atleast when no serious Cache needing applications is used...

Have to remember it's built on the Morgan core (And the same core as on the MP and XP's with less cache), and the MP/XP's has a 20% better performance per MHz then the Tbird, so why wouldn't the new Durons (Morgan) be faster than the old Tbird? The speed increase between spitfire (or what the old duron core was) and the morgan is significant...

[otheos]

Like I said the 266Mhz Athlon is faster than the 200Mhz Duron, but if you run it at 139Mhz FSB then the Duron will edge out the Athlon on most applications.

The Morgan core offers two new features (compared to the Spitfire/TBird). Data pre-fetch and SSE. The latter is useless (as intel has no nicely proven by now) but the former makes a nive difference. Even then, the 256KBytes cache of the Athlon are still no match for the Duron in cache intensive applications (encoding/compiling/number crunching).

[Bogg]

Well, atleast when no serious Cache needing applications is used...
<- I actually stated that in my last post :)

I know of the cache difference between the budget duron and the high end athlons, but hey, I don't do anything that demands much cache...Or, i do...but I can wait a couple of seconds longer :)

[Alnath]

Speed for speed the morgan core duron is nearly as fast as the T-bird was. benchmarks are mainly theoretical anyway, in the real world the spitfire cored duron was only ever the equivelent of 50MHz behind the T-bird . Personaly i would get the Duron simply because its newer technology, runs cooler and has SSE instuctions.

In the UK you can still get 1.4GHz T-birds for less than 90 quid where as a 1.2GHz Duron is 57 quid

[elroy]

I bought a 1.4 T-bird and run it on a Biostar M7VKG board. It runs easily at 1.5 with PC133 ram at 143 bus speed. The benchmarks in SiSoft Sandra show it is nearly identical to an XP1800+. On pricewatch.com you can get the cpu for $91 shipped and the board for $70 shipped. Also there is no unlocking to achieve this speed.

[Bullet-Man-2]

most new hardware is tested on 1ghz machines. So the difference between duron and t-birds dealing with over 1ghz its not going to give you a big advantage. Maybe an extra second loading a game.

Go with the most you can afford