Fatman

I've seen references to AMD's new revision of Athlon on the Inquirer. They're referring to it as "Thorton" - some sort of hybrid between the Thoroughbred and Barton cores. That's probably not an official name, but AMD are calling it Model-10 (follow the link on the Inq page, hit the "processor" drop-down).

Anyway, the chip seems to be...
- 0.13µ (without SOI)
- 256k l2 cache
- 266MHz fsb
...which sounds very much like a Thoroughbred core. What's the difference? Am I being a muppet and overlooking something really obvious?

super_si

This seems to be the main different they highlight.

Not sure what TB had

Si

Fatman

Thoroughbred has 256K level-2 cache. (linkage to AMD tech document)

super_si

No idea like you then.

That seemed the significat difference.

Does the barton have no instructions or anyway.......

Fatman

There's probably a few microcode patches, but no new instructions AFAIK. They omitted those (retained for Hammer) in order to maximise compatibility with the SoA motherboard stock "in the market".

super_si

Higher clock speeds perhaps..

Si

super_si

here aswell

Si

Fatman

...ah, OK - so it's going to be a Barton core with 1/2 its cache disabled. Perhaps they've not used the full bus speed yet in order not to detract sales from Thoroughbred XP's whilst there's still stock around?

super_si

Said barton in the inquirer article too lol



Si

[Edited by super_si - 6/29/2003 5:27:00 PM]