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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan3 who wrote (84184)	12/27/1999 3:37:00 AM
From: Goutam	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1573910

Dan3, Swiped this from Ace's - aceshardware.com ____________________________________ Athlon 850/900 will work at 1.7V (AMD) Posted By johan Monday, December 27, 1999 - 6:00:01 AM To increase the yields of the K75 (Athlon .18 æ core), AMD management has decided to increase the voltage of the higher clocked Athlons from 1.6V to 1.7V. That way, almost any .18æ Athlon should reach 800 MHz and it is possible that the 850 and 900 MHz Athlon will be introduced much sooner. It is clear that AMD is feeling the pressure of Intel too and wants to stay ahead in the race. If you already got a Slot A motherboard, you shouldn't worry: the Athlon core regulate voltages internally. AMD representatives reassured us that it is "plug and play" : ). On a different note: .18 æ Athlons do not need 300W power supplies like their older .25 æ brothers do. So before you better try before you ditch your older 235W supply. Want to know how you can distinguish a .25æ Athlon from a .18 one without cracking your expensive cpu open? Read our Athlon 800 review ! aceshardware.com ____________________________________ ======== I'm all for it if 0.1V increase can give raise to higher yields at speeds 800MHz and more. It was a smart move by AMD to include the internal regulation of core voltage (I guess it does it through the 4 Vcore control lines which in turn set the Vcore limit from the SLOT-A mobo regulators) from the beginning - this way Vcore spec can be set as needed within the design limits while maintaining the Plug-and-Play feature. Also, if almost any Athlon can reach 800MHz or more with a 0.1V bump in the core voltage - we can say good buy to 500MHz - 600MHz ones pretty soon. Goutama

To: Dan3 who wrote (84184)	12/27/1999 10:11:00 AM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573910

Dan3, The 'wait for .18' argument is quite valid as Gateway would not want to be managing a declining, soon to be extinct, product. From a manufacturing point of view it is always best to have two sources of supply.....for the same product. The fact that the Athlon and P-III are not pin compatible places an extra hurdle in the way of AMD, although we are approaching the point where a P-III+ mobo and an Athlon + mobo are identical drop in parts for the standard as well as the OEM chassis. Once we reach that point, which can only come with full availability of the new 133 chipset from VIA(as well as similar(if any) offerings from others),then we will be at a simple decision point in the purchasing department, based on economics, speed etc. From what I see in the press releases this whould occur in the middle of the first quarter in volume and 133 chip sets and mobos are even now in beta test at various OEMs. Dell amd GTW have chosen to ride the price cut coat-tails of IBM and CPQ who supported AMD with socket share for the express reason of keeping them as a viable CPU supplier. There may be another reason GTW does not sell the Athlon....they cannot get enough chips as a firm committed supply from AMD as AMD will give a priority to IBM and CPQ and the screwdriver channel. IBM and CPQ as a quid pro quo and the screwdriver channel(much larger than GTW) as the broadest and widest channel they can get. As for the HSW selling Athlons? That is a large direct channel that does not care if you are short of chips from time to time, they will shift what they sell, unlike GTW/Dell who can get badly screwed if they lack parts for a while and they have no alternate source. Now we have upped the core V by 0.1 volts on the Athlon...will we hear another chorus from the toaster brigade. Bill