Related story: Review of the Cyrix III / Samuel in English
Intel already demonstrated how to make a low-price consumer processor on the basis of a high-end CPU. The Celeron basically is a Pentium III with half its L2 cache. AMD followed along these lines when reducing the Duron's L2 cache to 64 KByte while the Athlon (Thunderbird), the Duron's "big brother", continues to rely on 256 KBytes. The Duron's L2 cache sits directly on the die, too. It runs at the full clock speed of the core.
We put various configurations of the Duron up against its Intel competitors. The Duron CPU we reviewed was a production silicon we obtained from AMD directly.
Pricing and Availability
The Duron and the Athlon (Thunderbird) are positioned in different price segments. The AMD price list clearly shows a considerable difference in price and clock rate between the two CPU types. Just as is the case with Intel, every new Duron with a higher clock rate seems to replace its Athlon counterpart. On the other hand, the Athlon will again follow suit in terms of increased clock rates. The first Duron CPUs already were shipped to major PC producers in early June, i.e. the first PCs will be available pretty soon.
MHz | USD |
|---|---|
1Ku Tray Units, last revision: 8.14.2000 and 9.5.2000 | |
Athlon 1100 | 853 $ |
Athlon 1000 | 612 $ |
Athlon 950 | 460 $ |
Athlon 900 | 350 $ |
Athlon 850 | 282 $ |
Athlon 800 | 215 $ |
Duron 750 | 181 $ |
Duron 700 | 138 $ |
Duron 650 | 103 $ |
Duron 600 | 79 $ |
The Duron competes against the Celeron, which already becomes clear from the identical price for the 600 MHz version. However, the fastest Duron currently also takes on the Pentium III.
MHz | USD |
|---|---|
1Ku Tray Units, last revision: 8.27.2000. | |
Pentium III 1000 | 669$ |
Pentium III 933 | 508$ |
Pentium III 866 | 358$ |
Pentium III 800 | 251$ |
Pentium III 733 | 193 $ |
Pentium III 700 | 193 $ |
Pentium III 650 | 193 $ |
Pentium III 600 | 193 $ |
Celeron 700 | 138 $ |
Celeron 667 | 112 $ |
Celeron 600 | 79 $ |
Celeron 566 | 69 $ |
Roadmap
How will the story go on? We expect to see Athlon and Duron versions with higher clock rates later this year. Which markets the Athlon and the Duron target is also clear (c. f. the following figure).
AMD's in-house roadmap shows that their high-end processor (code name: Mustang) will be due by the end of 2000. This CPU should be the future Athlon Ultra, which is equipped with a very large L2 cache and which will take on Intel's Xeon in the workstation and server segments. Moreover, the "Corvette" will be rolled out as an Athlon for notebooks.
Details on the Duron
The Duron is based on the Athlon's CPU core, which we subjected to an in-depth review as described in our article Details on the Athlon The feature is currently only available in German - please bear with us. The Duron's die is 100 square millimeter in size and holds 25 million transistors. The Thunderbird's new L2 cache takes up roughly 20 per cent of the die surface, which is now 120 square millimeter in size and accommodates 37 million transistors. The die of the old Athlon which was designed for Slot A only featured 22 million transistors.
The Duron, which is based on 0.18 micron technology, only requires a core voltage of 1.5 Volt. The versions from 750 MHz upwards rely on 1.6 Volt, which is shown by the figure on the core voltage (taken from the Duron specs). The voltage requirements of the Athlon (Thunderbird) vary from 1.7 to 1.75 Volt.
When it comes to power consumption, the Duron is economical, too. It runs on approximately one third less power than the Thunderbird. The Celeron 600, for example, is content with 18 Watt.
Cache Architecture
The external L2 cache of the previous Athlon models only worked with 2-way associativity but in turn was 512 KByte in size. With the Thunderbird, AMD launched an L2 cache working with 8-way associativity. The Duron with its 64-Kbyte L2 cache adopted the design approach pursued for the latter.
Please refer to our feature on Processor Basics in the Cache Basics section for detailed information on associative caches. The feature is currently only available in German - please bear with us.
However, AMD has not made any changes on the L1 cache. The Duron's L1 cache continues to work with 2-way associativity and to be 128 KBytes in size, i.e. 64 KBytes each for instructions and data.
2D Benchmarks: Windows 98 SE
The level of performance with standard applications is still the most important issue for a microprocessor. This does not only include programs such as Microsoft's Word or Excel but also MPEG encoders, 3D and sound-editing applications. Chip makers simply love computer games since this market is always in need of ever greater CPU performance. Even the Internet has also been identified as one of the potential drivers for faster CPUs. However, practical experience has shown that neither SSE nor 3DNow! make much of a difference when it comes to surfing the Internet - although in particular Intel will not agree here.
Apart from a few exceptions, classic 2D applications gain the most from a CPU that performs well with integer instructions. But the number of sound and graphics editing applications that - just as games - prefer a fast FPU and MMX or 3DNow! is constantly increasing. We therefore evaluated the performance of the CPUs with the benchmark suite SYSMark 98, which features a mix of all the aforementioned applications.
Our tests show that the Duron 700 with PC100 SDRAM beats the Pentium III in a comparable configuration. Equipped with PC133 SDRAM, the Duron 700 even catches up with the Pentium III 800. The Duron 600 configuration with PC100 SDRAM, which is not shown in the diagram but was also reviewed, scored 253 SYSmark98 points.
Please bear in mind that "PC100" and "PC133" in all diagrams only refer to the memory clock. The Celeron 566 and the Celeron 600 always ran at their specified FSB of 66 MHz. The same applies to the Duron and the Thunderbird, which were clocked at the specified FSB of 100 MHz only (200 MHz per DDR technology) even when equipped with PC133 memory.
2D Benchmarks: Windows NT 4.0
As processor for low-price PCs, the Duron actually does not necessarily have to prove the same performance under Windows NT or Windows 2000 as under Windows 98. However, AMD has scheduled its "big brother", the Athlon, for the high-end segment and later on for the server and workstation segments, too. Our SYSmark98 tests under Windows NT demonstrate that the Duron neither needs to fear comparison here. While it is true that the Duron 700 comes in second after the Pentium III, which also runs on PC100 SDRAM, the overall result is unexpectedly positive. In addition, the Duron competes against the Celeron, which clearly lags behind at the same core clock rate of 600 MHz.
Please bear in mind that "PC100" and "PC133" in all diagrams only refer to the memory clock. The Celeron 566 and the Celeron 600 always ran at their specified FSB of 66 MHz. The same applies to the Duron and the Thunderbird, which were clocked at the specified FSB of 100 MHz only (200 MHz per DDR technology) even when equipped with PC133 memory.
3D Benchmarks: 3DMark99 Max Pro
The synthetic 3D benchmark 3Dmark99 Max Pro serves as a touchstone for the capacity of the Intel 3D instruction set (SSE) and AMD's 3DNow!. 3Dmark99 also lends itself to comparing the performance of a processor's FPU and the 3D instruction set. We used the benchmark without AMD's additional Athlon DLL. The optimization for 3DNow! thus corresponds to the one designed for the K6-3 series, which reflects real-world conditions more accurately since the current 3D games have not been optimized for the Athlon yet. The Pentium III on the other hand is already identified by the 3DMark99 Max Pro benchmark by default. The final score obtained with 3DMark99 Max Pro strongly depends on the graphics system. However, since we always use the same graphics boards, drivers and settings for this review, any factors that might lead to distorted results are excluded.
The Celeron 600 is way behind the Duron 600 with PC133 SDRAM. And not even the configuration with PC100 memory, which is not shown in the diagram, can stop the Duron. The Duron scored 5780 3DMark points and 9997 CPU points, thus maintaining its clear lead over the identically equipped Celeron system.
Please bear in mind that "PC100" and "PC133" in all diagrams only refer to the memory clock. The Celeron 566 and the Celeron 600 always ran at their specified FSB of 66 MHz. The same applies to the Duron and the Thunderbird, which were clocked at the specified FSB of 100 MHz only (200 MHz per DDR technology) even when equipped with PC133 memory.
3D Games: Quake 3 Arena
3D games with an ever greater degree of complexity use PC hardware to the max. FPU performance is critical here. The graphics board sometimes slows down performance. With these reviews, one always has to keep an eye on whether the individual CPUs follow close behind in terms of their test results. The fact that the Duron 750 for example "only" scores 95.8 fps, thus coming in behind the Pentium III 800 with 95.9 fps, may be regarded as a deviation which is due to the scattering of values. The Duron-600 configuration with PC100 SDRAM, which is not shown in the diagram, achieves 80 6 fps, which still makes the Duron come in before the Pentium III 700.
Please bear in mind that "PC100" and "PC133" in all diagrams only refer to the memory clock. The Celeron 566 and the Celeron 600 always ran at their specified FSB of 66 MHz. The same applies to the Duron and the Thunderbird, which were clocked at the specified FSB of 100 MHz only (200 MHz per DDR technology) even when equipped with PC133 memory.
3D Games: Unreal
The old Unreal is an especially suitable 3D benchmark. We took the scores using Direct3D. Unreal also features a very advanced soft renderer that does not use the 3D capabilities of the graphics board and heavily depends on FPU and MMX performance.
The Duron also showed an above-par performance in the two Unreal tests. Since Unreal uses the memory to the max, we ran additional tests with the Duron 600 and PC100 SDRAM. In terms of software rendering this configuration scores 14.8 fps. When the graphics system is beefed up, it achieves 54.1 fps. This means that the Duron is clearly quicker off the mark than the Celeron at these benchmark tests, too.
Please bear in mind that "PC100" and "PC133" in all diagrams only refer to the memory clock. The Celeron 566 and the Celeron 600 always ran at their specified FSB of 66 MHz. The same applies to the Duron and the Thunderbird, which were clocked at the specified FSB of 100 MHz only (200 MHz per DDR technology) even when equipped with PC133 memory.
Conclusion
The test results speak for themselves: With the Duron, AMD offers the fastest CPU in the low-price segment. This CPU is even so fast that it is on a par with Intel's Pentium III in comparable configurations. The division of AMD's product range into segments has worked out nicely since the differentiation of both price and performance is appropriate when compared to the Athlon. And the pricing is also coherent when compared to the one pursued by Intel, AMD's arch rival. AMD offers better performance at the same price.
It remains to be seen how Intel will react. We expect price cuts and CPUs with higher clock rates in the near future. With 750 MHz, AMD has set a very high standard for the consumer segment, too. However, the FSB clock of only 66 MHz considerably slows down the current Celerons at the moment. In the near future we will see the Celeron with 100 MHz FSB clock.
After AMD has again taken the lead with the Athlon (Thunderbird) in the area of high-performance PCs, the guys from Texas now also dominate the value market. The Athlon Ultra is scheduled for the end of 2000, which will spell serious competition for Intel in the server and workstation sectors as well. (mec/nie)
(Translation by Isolde Gassner. This story is (c) 2000 by IDG Interactive GmbH. All rights reserved.)
VIA KT Chipset
Testing AMD's Duron is currently only possible when you use a mainboard based on the VIA chipset Apollo KT133. As with the Thunderbird review , we used the KT reference board VT5276D from VIA as a test platform for the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird review currently is only available in German - please bear with us.
The Apollo KT133 is VIA's second chipset for the E2K bus of the Athlon and the Duron. It consists of two components: the Northbridge VT 8363 includes the AGP, PCI and memory controllers in addition to the CPU interface. The VIA VT82C686A is typically used as Southbridge. Two serial interfaces, one parallel interface and the floppy controller are integrated in this component. It also features four USB ports and two UltraDMA/66 compliant EIDE interfaces.
The VIA VT82C686A Southbridge of the KT133 chipset is also used in the P6 chipset VIA Apollo Pro 133 A and the VIA Apollo KX 133. The innards of the E2K Northbridges should be similar to those of its P6 counterpart - of course except for the required FSB adaptation of the E2K bus of the Athlon and the Duron. The tables show the differences between AMD's Irongate, VIA's Apollo KX133 and VIA's Apollo Pro 133 A.
With the Apollo KT133, one only needs a few low-scale integration components for the mainboard design. The chipset duo offers basic sound and modem functionality. Take a low-price digital/analog converter and you'll have an integrated sound board and a modem on the board.
Chipset | VIA Apollo KT133 | VIA Apollo KX133 | AMD Irongate |
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
Designation | VIA VT82C693A | VIA VT82C693A | AMD 751 |
CPU slot | Socket A | Slot A | Slot A |
FSB-clock (MHz) | 100 DDR | 100 DDR | 100 DDR |
Memory clock | 66, 100, 133 | 66, 100, 133 | 100 |
max. memory (MByte) | 2048 | 2048 | 768 |
Memory type | SDRAM, VC-SDRAM | SDRAM, VC-SDRAM | SDRAM |
DIMM total max. | 4 | 4 | 3 |
AGP | 4x | 4x | 2x |
Designation | VIA VT82C686A | AMD 756 |
|---|---|---|
| ||
UDMA66 | Yes | Yes |
USB ports | 4 | 2 |
AC97 audio/modem | Yes | No |
System monitoring | Yes | No |
I/O functionality | Yes | No |
RTC | Yes | No |
Keyboard controller | Yes | No |
Test Setup: Hardware
The Duron is a processor for low-price PCs. Therefore, it should be compared to CPUs that also are positioned in this price segment, i.e. to the K6-2 550 and to the new Celeron models with 566 and 600 MHz. In addition, we used Pentium III and Athlon CPUs with a low clock rate in order to be able to assess the Duron in terms of performance.
We reviewed Duron CPUs that were directly supplied by AMD in the tecChannel test lab .
In order to demonstrate the impact of the RAM on the overall performance, we tested the 700 MHz Duron both with PC100 and with PC133 SDRAMs. The test runs at 600, 650 and 750 MHz were conducted with PC133 SDRAM since this type of memory is the optimum to be used for the Duron in practical operation.
The same applies to the tests performed on the Intel Celeron, for which we used PC100 SDRAM and no PC66 SDRAM. It was not possible to use PC133 memory for the Celeron because mainboards based on the VIA Apollo Pro 133 only allow memory clock speeds of 33 MHz more than the FSB clock. The Celeron, however, is still specified for 66 MHz FSB speed.
Neither was it possible to use VCM modules (virtual channel memory) since the VIA VT5276D mainboard would not work reliably with this type of memory.
Test Setup: Software
We review microprocessors with a strictly defined setup. The following applies to the software used:
Bapcos SYSmark98 runs at a 1024x768 resolution with 32-bit colors. The operating systems used are Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) and Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 5.
With 3DMark99 Max Pro we use a 800x600 resolution at 16-bit colors with triple frame buffering (default settings of this benchmark).
The Unreal scores give the frames per second when running the initial timedemo of the game after at least three complete runs (timedemo 1). The game runs at 800x600 resolution and 16-bit colors. We both give the scores for 3D acceleration by the graphics board with Direct3D and with software rendering ("unreal - nohard")
The demo version of Quake 3 Arena is used with demo2 at the normal detail level at 640x480 resolution and 16-bit colors.
V-sync is disabled for all gaming and 3D benchmarks.
Test-Setup: Athlon, Duron
The following gives a detailed listing of the hardware we use for reviewing CPUs:
Component | Designation |
|---|---|
| |
Motherboard 1 | AMD FESTER B3 |
Serial No. | 090799FL0047 |
Firmware | aftb00-9 23.11.99 |
Noteworthy | Slot A |
Motherboard 2 | VIA VT5276D |
Serial No. | --- |
Firmware | Evaluation |
Noteworthy | Socket A |
RAM | Centon Eelectronics 128MB PC100 CAS=2 |
Serial No. | 118426 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | PC100 / SEC KM48S8030BT-GH |
Sound board | TerraTec XLerate Pro |
Serial No. | 1293900011399 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | Rev. C / 4.06.2016 / 13.03.1999 |
NIC | 3Com Fast Etherlink 3C905B-TX |
Serial No. | 6TQ2E9F5E9 |
Firmware | Hardware Rev.: 048 |
Noteworthy | Rev. A / 4.10.2222 / 05.05.1999 |
Graphics board | Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 |
Serial No. | 905381151072 |
Firmware | V2.05.13 |
Noteworthy | Detonator 5.16 |
SCSI Adaptor 1 | Adaptec AHA-2940U2W |
Serial No. | BF0A8110E48 |
Firmware | V.2.01.0 |
Noteworthy | Rev. A |
SCSI Adaptor 2 | Adaptec AHA-2940UW Pro |
Serial No. | BC0B90904KF |
Firmware | V.2.11.0 |
Noteworthy | Treiber v2.21A |
Hard drive | Quantum ATLAS IV 9 WLS |
Serial No. | 369919430210 |
Firmware | 0808 |
Noteworthy | 8,7GB REV 01-D |
DVD-ROM | Pioneer DVD-303S-A |
Serial No. | TGT0059424WL |
Firmware | 1.09 |
Noteworthy | --- |
Power supply | Channel Well Technology ATX-230 |
Serial No. | 540299070594 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | 230 W |
Keyboard | Cherry RS 6000 M |
Serial No. | G 0064322 4 L28 3 I |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | --- |
Mouse | Logitech M-S35 |
Serial No. | LZA84352020 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | 3 Keys :) |
Test Setup: Intel CPUs, K6-2
Component | Designation |
|---|---|
| |
Motherboard 1 | TyanTrinity ATX S1598S |
Serial No. | TA9021810199 |
Firmware | v1.04a 052199 |
Noteworthy | Super Socket 7 |
Motherboard 2 | TyanTsunami ATX S1846SL |
Serial No. | TY8503210175 |
Firmware | v1.16a 0312991430 |
Noteworthy | Slot 1 |
Motherboard 3 | TyanTrinity 400 S1854SLA |
Serial No. | 9933810059 |
Firmware | v1.05 |
Noteworthy | Slot 1 /S370 |
Motherboard 4 | Siemens D-1127 |
Serial No. | 01365039 |
Firmware | v1.02 |
Noteworthy | Slot 1 |
RAM 1 | SEC KM48S8030AT |
Serial No. | --- |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | 128 MByte SDRAM PC100 CAS=2 |
RAM 2 | 128MB PC133 |
Serial No. | 241197 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | 128 MByte SDRAM PC133 CAS=3 |
RAM 3 | Samsung KMMR18R88AC1-RK8 |
Serial No. | 9938 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | 128MByte DRDRAM 800-45 100 8d ECC |
Sound board | TerraTec XLerate Pro |
Serial No. | 1293900011590 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | Rev. C / 4.06.2016 / 13.03.1999 |
NIC | 3Com Fast Etherlink 3C905B-TX |
Serial No. | 6TQ2E9F603 |
Firmware | Hardware-Ver.: 048 |
Noteworthy | Rev. A / 4.10.2222 / 05.05.1999 |
Graphics board | Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 |
Serial No. | 905381151072 |
Firmware | V2.05.13 |
Noteworthy | Detonator 3.68 |
SCSI Adaptor 1 | Adaptec AHA-2940U2W |
Serial No. | BF0A8110EJG |
Firmware | V.2.01.0 |
Noteworthy | Rev. A |
SCSI Adaptor 2 | Adaptec AHA-2940UW Pro |
Serial No. | BC0B90905QN |
Firmware | V.2.11.0 |
Noteworthy | V2.21° |
Hard drive | Quantum ATLAS IV 9 WLS |
Serial No. | 369919430210 |
Firmware | 0808 |
Noteworthy | 8,7GB REV 01-D |
DVD-ROM | Pioneer DVD-303S-A |
Serial No. | TGT0059423WL |
Firmware | 1.09 |
Noteworthy | --- |
Power supply | Channel Well Technology ATX-230 |
Serial No. | 540299070595 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | 230 W |
Keyboard | Cherry RS 6000 M |
Serial No. | G 0064318 4 L28 3 I |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | --- |
Mouse | Logitech M-S35 |
Serial No. | LZA84352013 |
Firmware | --- |
Noteworthy | 3 Keys :) |