Bonjour everyone! First post here, straight from Montreal Canada!

I'd like to have your opinion for my little dillema. I plan on upgrading my computer soon and I'm not sure what CPU to choose. I'm a occasionnal gamer and I want to buy either a Duron 1200 MHz or a Thunderbird 1000MHz since there cheap enough for me and there around the same price.

The Duron has 64 Kb of L2 cache mem while the T-Bird has 256Kb, which I heard is important for 3D frame rate

Is the 200 MHz make up for the lack of cache mem or is L2 cache mem more important for 3D gaming?

Or am I completely lost in this technical mumbo jumbo?

Thanks!

Phelix ze bastard

The Duron is similar to a celeron..Low cost, low performance. I would recommend a Tbird any day of the week over a Duron even if the Tbird clock speed is lower. CPU cycles isnt everything. On Die cache, bus speed and die size are all contributing factors to a fast computer..

Let's sum up this two processors :

AMD Duron 1200
128 L1, 64 L2
3DNow, SSE
Hardware Data Prefetch
1.6 VCore

AMD T-Bird 1000
128 L1, 256 L2
3DNow
No Hardware Prefetch
1.75 VCore

The T-Bird will work much faster in almost all applications due to its larger cache. Maybe in certain SSE optimised programs, the Duron might pull ahead but I'm not too sure. If you choose to go with the T-Bird, you will need a better cooling solution though. Durons generally run much cooler.

I would say the duron would be a better choice . . . <<<~~ from an eleven year old point of view . . .


Well . . . I recently had the same question . . . a choice between an AMD Duron or Thunderbird. And I ended up with an AMD DURON 1.2Ghz . . .

Every Duron that is 1000Mhz + is using the new Morgan Core.
That would mean that the 1.2 ghz is using the new morgan core.

I'm not sure but, the morgan core uses the Athlon XP Palomino Core . . . but with lesser cache die. Am i wrong ?

I found out that the Duron was more expensive . . . just a little more . . . over here . . . in BC, Canada most shops don't sell the Thunder Bird 1000 . . . so i had to go with the Duron . . if you are lucky and like TB go ahead and buy !

At this point . . . what ever you can afford is best . . . all AMD CPUs are pretty good . . . and value in them are great!

Look at some Benchmarks . . . they might help you in what to buy


Hope that helps,
TRUFFLES


GOOD LUCK :grinthumb

The 64 kb of L2 is pretty much the Duron's only weakness...

Still, I'd go with the T-Bird, easily. They're built for performance, much unlike the Duron.

Durons perform peachy in games and such, but stink in office applications, because of the tiny L2.

T-Birds are excellent in both areas...

Also note:
From the fantabulistical phantastical 3DS Price Guide-a-mundo:
(That's www.3dspotlight.com/prices.shtml for you n00bs )
Duron, 1.2 GHz:
RETAIL - $68.60
OEM - $61.88
T-Bird, 1 GHz: (266MHz FSB...)
RETAIL - $113.80
OEM - $82.88
Yet another reason for the TB! It doesn't cost much less! :haha:
Still, go TB. The performance difference is much worth it...

[9:58] Vehementi wishes he had 56k BECAUSE THE PRICE PAGE LOADS SO $#%^ING SLOW

And to add to what everyone is saying, both T-bird and XP's have been dropping in price the past few weeks and are due to drop in the next couple. I would probably wait a few more weeks and mabee you could afford an XP 1.4. Then you solve both your prob's and have a faster CPU than you planned on.