AMD Athlon (K7)
| << AMD Athlon >> | |
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| Production: | 1999 to 2002 |
| Producer: | AMD |
| Processor clock: | 500 MHz to 1400 MHz |
| FSB cycle: | 100 MHz to 133 MHz |
| L2 cache size: | 256 KiB to 512 KiB |
| Instruction set : | x86 |
| Microarchitecture : | AMD K7 |
| Base: | |
Names of the processor cores:
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The AMD Athlon refers to a family of x86 -compatible processors from AMD . It is also known as the AMD K7 , based on its predecessor, the K6 .
From August 1999 AMD offered the Athlon, the fastest x86 processor in the world at the time. The Athlon was also the processor that first exceeded the prestigious limit of one gigahertz (GHz) clock frequency . Because of the success of the Athlon, many processors from AMD were named that way; for a list see Athlon .
Product history
The first Athlon was available as a model for slot A , which was mechanically similar to Intel's slot 1 . The L2 cache of 512 KiB was at this slot model on the processor board and thus outside of this , which is why he could be operated depending on the model with only half, or two-fifths to one third of the processor clock speed. Later, with the Thunderbird core, the first Athlon processor for socket A (socket 462) came out, the L2 cache of which is integrated on a chip together with the processor core . Due to the shorter lines, the cache can be addressed at full clock frequency, but for cost reasons it was reduced to 256 KiB. The Thunderbird Athlon was also available in a few rare copies for slot A, but it was not compatible with all motherboards. A modification of the Thunderbird Athlon is the Duron , which with a reduced L2 cache was aimed at price-sensitive customers and the office market.
The first Athlons (with the development names Argon or Pluto / Orion for Slot A and Thunderbird for Socket A) ran with a front side bus clocked at 100 MHz or 133 MHz and reached clock frequencies of up to 1000 MHz (Slot A models) or 1400 MHz (Socket A models).
technology
The Athlon was the first x86 processor from AMD that was no longer based on the same platform as the processors from Intel : Intel had made the change from socket 7 to slot 1 long before , while AMD continued to build processors for socket 7. The new platform therefore offered AMD the opportunity for a new technical start, especially the new K7 architecture offers higher performance potential than its predecessor: more execution units, a full pipeline for the floating point unit, wider data paths, etc.
AMD was able to solve the problem of a fast connection of the L2 cache back then by integrating this cache in the processor (including the K6-III ). Because of the resulting large dies and the resulting greatly increased likelihood of manufacturing errors, this method was quite expensive and associated with high rejects. For this reason, AMD chose the slot design for the Athlon - as did Intel before with the Pentium II . This made it possible to place the cache SRAM as a separate chip close to the processor core and thus keep the lines short. With the later base design, this was unnecessary, because thanks to improved manufacturing technology, the cache could be integrated on the die at low cost.
While the FSB clock frequency, multiplier and operating voltage of the Socket 7 processors are determined by the mainboard, with Slot A and Socket A processors this task is more the responsibility of the processor itself. The mainboard only supplies the FSB clock, the processor uses it to generate its own clock frequency, and it also requests a certain voltage from the mainboard. This is possible because the target settings are coded on the processor board with the help of conductive bridges. With the Slot-A processors, however, there is a connection on the board that can be used to bypass this default setting, which makes overclocking possible; the "golden finger devices" used for this are simply attached. They offer DIP switches for manual parameter selection. Similarly, with socket A processors, the same goal can be achieved by short-circuiting the bridges appropriately.
successor
The direct successor to the Athlon was the Athlon XP , with a revised version of the K7 architecture that came up with the streaming SIMD extensions (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) introduced by Intel in 1999 .
Model data
K7 (argon)
- L1 cache: 64 + 64 KiB (data + instructions)
- L2 cache: 512 KiB (external chips on CPU module with ½ CPU cycle)
- MMX , Extended 3DNow!
- Slot A , EV6 with 100 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB 200)
- Operating voltage (VCore): 1.60 V.
- Release DATE: June 23, 1999
- Manufacturing technology: 0.25 µm
- The size: 184 mm² with 22.0 million transistors
- Clock rates: 500–700 MHz
- 500 MHz (250 MHz L2 cache) [23. June 1999]
- 550 MHz (275 MHz L2 cache) [23. June 1999]
- 600 MHz (300 MHz L2 cache) [23. June 1999]
- 650 MHz (325 MHz L2 cache) [9. August 1999]
- 700 MHz (350 MHz L2 cache) [4th October 1999]
K75 (Pluto / Orion)
- L1 cache: 64 + 64 KiB (data + instructions)
- L2 cache: 512 KiB (external chips on CPU module with ½, ⅖ or ⅓ CPU clock)
- MMX , Extended 3DNow!
- Slot A , EV6 with 100 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB 200)
- Operating voltage (VCore): 1.60–1.80 V.
- Release DATE: November 29, 1999
- Manufacturing technology: 0.18 µm
- The size: 108 mm² with 22.0 million transistors
- Clock rates: 550–1000 MHz
- 550 MHz (275 MHz L2 cache) [29. November 1999]
- 600 MHz (300 MHz L2 cache) [29. November 1999]
- 650 MHz (325 MHz L2 cache) [29. November 1999]
- 700 MHz (350 MHz L2 cache) [29. November 1999]
- 750 MHz (300 MHz L2 cache) [29. November 1999]
- 800 MHz (320 MHz L2 cache) [6. January 2000]
- 850 MHz (340 MHz L2 cache) [11. February 2000]
- 900 MHz (300 MHz L2 cache) [6. March 2000]
- 950 MHz (317 MHz L2 cache) [6. March 2000]
- 1000 MHz (333 MHz L2 cache) [6. March 2000]
Thunderbird
- L1 cache: 64 + 64 KiB (data + instructions)
- L2 cache: 256 KiB with processor clock
- MMX , Extended 3DNow!
- Slot A , EV6 with 100 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB 200)
- Socket A , EV6 with 100 MHz (FSB 200, B models) and 133 MHz (FSB 266, C models) front side bus
- Operating voltage (VCore): 1.70-1.75 V.
- Release DATE: June 5, 2000
- Manufacturing technology: 0.18 µm
- The size: 120 mm² with 37.0 million transistors
- Clock rates:
- Slot A: 650-1000 MHz
- 650 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 700 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 750 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 800 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 850 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 900 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 950 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 1000 MHz [5th June 2000]
- Socket A, 100 MHz FSB (B models): 650–1400 MHz
- 650 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 700 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 750 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 800 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 850 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 900 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 950 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 1000 MHz [5th June 2000]
- 1100 MHz [28. August 2000]
- 1200 MHz [17. October 2000]
- 1300 MHz [22. March 2001]
- 1400 MHz [6. June 2001]
- Socket A, 133 MHz FSB (C models): 1000–1400 MHz
- 1000 MHz [30. October 2000]
- 1133 MHz [30. October 2000]
- 1200 MHz [30. October 2000]
- 1333 MHz [22. March 2001]
- 1400 MHz [6. June 2001]
- Slot A: 650-1000 MHz
Web links
- Product information ( memento of October 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at amd.com
- AMD Athlon: Pictures and information at cpu-collection.de
- AMD Athlon: history and pictures at cpu-info.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Slot A Athlon Overclocking Guide . HighSpeed PC
- ↑ Plastic surgery: Activation of the Athlon XP on 2000+ . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Tom's Hardware, November 8, 2001
