…2003: With the K7 alias Athlon, AMD had presented its major competitor Intel with a highly successful opponent. He relied on an independent design and thus beat the Pentium III in many respects, he won the prestigious gigahertz race and successfully established his own platform with the Socket A. In the meantime, however, Intel has regained a slight lead in performance with the Pentium 4 “Northwood”. Before AMD strikes back with the K8 alias Athlon 64, there is a final expansion stage of the K7, which has been known under the name Athlon XP since the Palomino core: On February 10, 2003, AMD presented the Athlon XP with Barton core. At 512 KiByte, its L2 cache is twice as large as its predecessor, Thoroughbred, and the FSB clock speed increases from 166 to 200 MHz in some models – but both are hardly enough to catch up with the P4 in all disciplines. The last Barton model, the 3200+, will be released in May, and the Thorton, a cheap version with the L2 cache, will be released in the fall. But the heyday of the K7 is over.
Links on the topic:
• AMD announces the Athlon (K7) (PCGH Retro)
• The Athlon 64 (PCGH Retro)
• New Athlon II models in testing