![](\"http://www.pcmech.com/pics/duronchip.jpg\")
AMD takes yet again another slash at Intel\’s market share with it\’s newest line of Processors to feature the K75 core. The AMD Duron will directly compete with the Intel Celeron in the Value PC market, while the Thunderbird will replace the current Athlon, and compete with the Pentium iii Coppermine Processors. The Duron is basically one of the New AMD Athlon Processors with the Thunderbird core, but with less L2 Cache, a lot less L2 Cache. Meanwhile, the Celeron II is basically a Pentium II, with SSE and 128KB of onboard L2 Cache. Don\’t think the Celeron II is basically a Pentium iii with half the cache. That\’s just not true.
Being the Duron will directly compete with the Celeron, let\’s take a look at the spec of each ship:
| AMD Duron | Intel Celeron | |
| Processing Core | K75, Same as Athlon | P6, Same as Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Pentium iii |
| L1 Cache | 128KB (64/64) | 32KB (16/16) |
| L2 Cache | 64KB full speed on chip | 128KB full speed on chip |
| Front Side Bus | 100Mhz DDR (200MHz) E6 | 66Mhz GTL+ |
| MMX | Yes | Yes |
| SIMD Instruction Type | 3D Now! | SSE |
Processing Core
Each processor shares the same type of processing core with it\’s bigger and higher performing brothers. The Duron, which has the same abilities as the Athlon, has 3 Fully pipelined Floating Point units. That means all 3 Floating Point Units can do the same things, at the same time, or they can do different things. The important thing is that the Duron\’s FPU units all work at the same time. On the other hand, the Celeron\’s three floating point units can work at the same time as long as they are doing different things. Once two or more of the pipelines want to use the same instruction on data, the pipelines then work one at a time. So, if two units want to do the same thing, one must stop and wait for the other to finish, then it can begin again. A stopped pipeline means less number crunching, which means lower FPS in those demanding 3D Games
Advantage: Duron
L1 Cache
The Duron sports 128KB of L1 Cache, split into 64KB Data and 64KB Instruction segments while the Celeron only sports 32KB, a mere fourth of the Duron. Advantage: Duron
L2 Cache
The Celeron processor has, ever since the 300A, had 128KB of L2 Cache running on the die, meaning, at the speed of the CPU itself. AMD recently moved the L2 Cache of all processors on the core. The only problem is the Duron only has 64KB of L2 cache. Thankfully, the L2 cache is exclusive. This means that the L1 Cache is not copied directly to the L2 cache, as it is with the Celeron. If it were, we\’d end up being 64KB in the hole, if that\’s possible. Currently, all Intel processors have inclusive L2 caches, meaning there is a mirror image of the L1 cache, inside the L2 cache, decreasing the available amount of L2 cache that is usable in all systems. With AMD\’s exclusive L2 Cache, it\’s almost like having 192KB of onboard Cache (L1 + L2). But, even with the 32KB subtracted from the L2 cache for the L1 mirror in the Celeron, it still has more L2 cache than the Duron. Speed of the L2 Cache is another story. The latency, or the number of clock cycles it takes for the CPU to find what it needs in the L2 cache, is a measurement of speed in memory, such as Cache. The Latency of the Duron\’s L2 Cache is \”0\”, while the Latency of the Celeron\’s L2 is \”2\”. That means it takes two clock cycles for the Celeron to find stuff in the L2, while the Duron will find what it needs on the first clock cycle. But, even though the Duron\’s L2 is faster, the Celeron still has more, two times more. A problem is encountered when taking TOTAL CACHE into mind. The Duron has 192KB, while the Celeron sadly has only 128KB of usable cache.
Advantage in L2:Celeron
Advantage in Total Cache: Duron
