Duron
The AMD Duron was an x86-compatible computer processor manufactured by AMD. It was released on June 19, 2000 as a low-cost alternative to AMD's own Athlon processor and the Pentium III and Celeron processor lines from rival Intel.
The Duron was pin-compatible with the Athlon and carried all of the computational resources from it, operating on the same motherboards in most cases. The original Duron was limited to operating on a 100 MHz front-side bus speed (FSB 200), while the Athlon at the time could run on a bus clock of 133 MHz (FSB 266). Later Durons supported a 133MHz bus (FSB 266) while Athlon XP ran at 166/200 MHz FSB (FSB 333/400). The original Duron, using the "Spitfire" core, was manufactured in 2000 and 2001 at speeds ranging from 600 to 950 MHz. It was based on the "Thunderbird" Athlon core. The second-generation Duron, the "Morgan" core, was sold in speed grades between 900 and 1300 MHz, and was based on the "Palomino" Athlon XP core.
The Duron had the same 64KB+64KB L1-Cache as the Athlon, but only 64KB of L2-Cache, as compared to 256KB or 512KB on the more expensive Athlon series. This was a relatively tiny amount of L2 cache, even smaller than the 128KB on Intel's Celeron. However, because of K7's large L1 cache, and because the post-Slot-A K7 chips used an exclusive L2 cache organization that enables L1 and L2 to not duplicate data as Intel's inclusive caches do, performance was only slightly impaired. In fact, because of the exclusive cache design, Duron could be said to be equipped with 192KB of cache (64+64+64), while Pentium III-based Celeron technically only had 96KB (128-32) total. Celeron was also handicapped with its 66MHz front side bus at the time. As a result, Duron was more than a match for Intel Pentium III "Coppermine" and completely put the "Coppermine"-based Intel Celeron to shame.
In 2003, AMD released several new iterations of the Duron, based on the "Thoroughbred" Athlon XP core, in this case, codenamed "Appalbred". The "Appalbred" Duron was available in 1.4 GHz, 1.6 GHz and 1.8 GHz forms, all on a 133MHz (FSB 266) bus by default. Enthusiast groups have discovered these Durons to be largely rebadged, unmodified, Thoroughbred cores, with some enthusiasts successfully turning their Durons into fullblown Athlon XP's with 256 KB of L2-Cache.
The Duron was discontinued in 2004 and succeeded by the Sempron.
Models
Duron "Spitfire" (Model 3, 180 nm)
- L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KB (Data + Instructions)
- L2-Cache: 64 KB, fullspeed
- MMX, 3DNow!
- Socket A (EV6)
- Front side bus: 100 MHz (FSB 200)
- VCore: 1.50 V - 1.60 V
- First release: June 19, 2000
- Clockrate: 600 MHz - 950 MHz
Duron "Morgan" (Model 7, 180 nm)
- L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KB (Data + Instructions)
- L2-Cache: 64 KB, fullspeed
- MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
- Socket A (EV6)
- Front side bus: 100 MHz (FSB 200)
- VCore: 1.75 V
- First release: August 20, 2001
- Clockrate: 900 MHz - 1300 MHz
Duron "Applebred" (Model 8, 130 nm)
- L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KB (Data + Instructions)
- L2-Cache: 64 KB, fullspeed
- MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
- Socket A (EV6)
- Front side bus: 133 MHz (FSB 266)
- VCore: 1.50 V
- First release: August 21, 2003
- Clock rate: 1400, 1600, 1800 MHz
See also
List of AMD Duron microprocessors
External links
- Duron information from AMD
- Budget CPU Shootout - Popular hardware review website Anandtech compares low priced CPUs
- AMD Duron technical specifications
- cpu-collection.de AMD Duron processor images and descriptions