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A Guide to Building a PC with an AMD Athlon™ Processor 22914B/0—September 1999
Features and Benefits
Table 1 shows AMDAthlon processor features and benefits.
Table 1. AMD Athlon™ Processor Features and Benefits
Features Benefits
n
PC Industry’s First 200-MHz Bus
•
200 MHz versus 100 MHz in Pentium III
• Delivers twice the peak bandwidth of today’s
100-MHz bus.
• Enables users to better take advantage of
high-bandwidth Internet connectivity like
IEEE 1394, cable modem, etc.
n
Most Advanced x86 Architecture
• Nine-Issue, superscalar microarchitecture
• Initial debut includes 650, 600, 550, and
500 MHz
• Highest frequency and best performance
• Investment in the future
n
Superscalar Floating-Point Unit
• Issues three superscalar, pipelined
floating-point or multimedia instructions
simultaneously
• Fastest x87 floating-point unit today
• Outstanding processing speed for math-
intensive software programs like CAD and
scientific applications
• The 650-MHz AMD Athlon processor has over
45% faster floating-point performance versus
the Pentium III 600.
n
High-Performance Cache
•
Industry’s largest L1 cache (128 Kbytes)
Four times the Pentium III
• High-speed 64-bit backside L2 cache
(512 Kbytes)
• Processor-level cache (L1) is faster than
system cache (L2), enhances overall system
performance.
n
Enhanced 3DNow! Instruction Set
Capabilities
•
Five new 3DNow! instructions (not in
Pentium III
• Nineteen new multimedia instructions that
augment the MMX™ instruction set.
• Relieves the floating-point-intensive
bottlenecks in 3D graphics processing
• Improved processing of audio, video, and
Internet content for a compelling visual
computing experience.
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