![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , February 10, 2003
- Author:
- Kyle Bennett
- Editor:
- Steve Lynch
- Google +1
AMD's Barton @ 3000+
AMD has a new flagship CPU that is launched today and it seems to be not just on paper. Let's find out what punch the Barton packs compared to the Pentium 4 3GHz and its older brother the Thoroughbred.
Specifications
Following are all the hard and fast numbers many of you will want to know.
Barton 3000+ Clock | 13*166MHz = 2.167GHz |
Cache Size | L1 - 128KB and L2 - 512KB |
Infrastructure | Socket A |
Process Technology | 0.13 micron copper |
Die Size | 101mm2 |
Transistor count | 54.3 million |
Nominal Voltage | 1.65v |
Max Die Temp | 85 degrees Celsius |
Typical Thermal Power | 58.4 W |
Max Thermal Power | 74.3 W |
Icc (CPU current) Max | 45.0 A |
But in all honesty, the Barton comes down to being very simple when compared to it predecessor, the Thoroughbred core AthlonXP.
All in all, the Barton core is little more than a Thoroughbred core that has had 256KB of L2 cache added to it. If you look at the larger slide linked above you will notice the cores are "identical" except for the two extra cache units added at the bottom of the core.
Obviously, this ups the transistor count as well as the actual die size and dimensions as noted in the chart above.
While it was first thought that AMD would utilize their SOI (Silicon on Insulator) technology with the first iteration of the Barton core, this did not come to pass. Keep in mind that for AMD to continue to scale this core, optimizations will have to be made to some extent, unless of course the core is already able to do that in its current state. Current AMD roadmaps outline that the Barton will be replaced by an Athlon64 codenamed Paris later this year that utilizes 256KB of L2 cache compared to the 1MB of the performance core Athlon64.
The Barton CPU
The picture above shows you the current Barton core side by side with the previous three cores from AMD.
Both the front and the back of the CPU are represented in close ups above along with a tight shot of the actual serial numbers and tracking codes in the third picture.
At stock speeds on our Asus A7N8X mainboard, this is how WCPUID identified the Barton CPU at 13*166MHz.
Notice of course that while the CPU is not identified by name, the important facts are there, which of course is the noted 512KB of L2 Cache.
Now that we have all the facts about the Barton, let's see what our CPU can do performance-wise.