AMD Athlon XP Review

Overall Rating

Incredably Fast Processor

Stays Cool

Amazing Graphics and Sound
Very Cheap

None

The AMD Athlon XP processor is amazing, i can not believe something so small can do so much. I bought the 1600+ and benchmarked it against a friends 2GHz Intel and my Athlon 1600+ XP beat hit machine with out breaking a sweat!!!


I Highly Recommend the Athlon XP to everyone, even to hard core Intel users who refuse to see that they are beat :-)

Members' Comments onDavid Portass.'s Review

• joey. on 23rd Apr 2002

  The amd sux it has no compatibility compared to intel! YOU AMD PEOPLE HAVE LOST YOUR MINDS!!! you people think the speed of the chip is everything in computing!!! i can't by trust of the government tell you what i know about computers!!! I would if the economy was not so bad!!! But as a honorable end user i keep it secret so you end up buying more to support the world!!! HINT: AMD IS BAD FOR REASONS UNKNOWN. I AM USING A k6-2 - IT IS AWFUL!!!! ATHLONS ARE RUBBISH COMPARED TO PENTIUMS!!! HINT: YOU DON'T NEED TO BUY THINGS TO UPGRADE AN COMPUTER!!!! THAT IS ALL I WILL TELL!!!!!! if you buy intel they still last longer!!! my friend is still using a p3 450 running gef 2 ultra!!! email me at hotty0212@aol.com if u are intel believer or if you amd fools want to argue!!!!!!!!!

• Paul S. on 31st Jul 2002

  I have two homebuilt systems, one PII 350 and one XP 1700+. The XP 1700+ cost me about 3/5 off the price I paid for the PII 350 but is 5/3 better/faster/more off everything compared to same era competition.

• Aceman. on 16th Aug 2002

  I have used an AMD for a while now I had compared a 950 Mhz AMD Athalon to a 1 Ghz Pentium 3. I used the same Components such as video card ECT. I had a big reliability problem with the Pentium. The system would lock up all kinds of stuff. Also it was NOTICABLY SLOWER I am sold on an AMD. Time after time again I have proven myself they are better. The people who still think that Pentium is better are just stuck in the past. Also there are no major improvements on the Pentium 4, from the Pentium 3. They just made it faster and stuck a new label on it just because they had to try to keep up with AMD. Rock On AMD and keep making a Kick bottom Processor!!!!!!!!!

• lando. on 26th Aug 2002

  Hey amd folks keep up the good work. I was formerly a pentium loyalist but as I compare the K62 proceessor to the pentium 2 processor, pentium 2 bended on its knees. right now I purchased Athlon 1600 XP and the performance is far beyond excellence. Even the Pentium 4 Northwood was beaten in most categories specially in 3D rendering. Intel is very expensive and inconsiderate to customers who wants to upgrade time to time. Their boards are easily be outdated like the Slot1 and socket 370 for P3.

• Nath. on 6th Oct 2002

  Hey Joey i want to ask u something; what is it that Intel and AMD chips use to sell their product? Doesn't Intel go by how 'fast' the processor runs? And AMD, don't they run on the 'rating' of the chip? I've had intel chips before, i've got an intel celleron 647hz and a P 150 as well, oh and not 2 mention an AMD K6-2 450hz processor and i'm currently building a new AMD XP 2000+ "rated" system running at 1.670ghz. I've had numerous problems with all of my Intel chips, much more than what they are worth. My friends are all running AMD XP processors except for one running the older p4 1.6ghz processor, with better graphics, more RAM etc... and the AMD chips beat the p4 back to the stone age! No problems so i'm definitely an AMD man, they're the best chip giving you more bang-for-your-money value and performance. So i'm definitely an AMD man, until proven otherwise by cold hard facts/evidence.

• pentium user. on 11th Oct 2002

  two words - AMD SUX
  
  I know many people who have bought AMD computers and have had nothin but trouble. Usually their new athlon 1800+ is less reliable than my 233 P2, the difference - mine although old, is intel, doesn't take a genius to work that out. But whoever is behind AMD processors is even more stupid than those who buy them.
  
  In short
  
  ABSOLUTE WASTE OF MONEY - DO NOT BUY EVER!!!!!!!!

• ALLforAMD. on 30th Nov 2002

  Hello, this is to all those people out there who regularly AMD bash. If you feel like spending $700 to get the latest p4 processor, then go ahead and blow your money. The fact remains that average users (me) don't need that kind of power AND WILL NEVER PAY THAT MUCH. Most people don't even need 2.5ghz let alone 3ghz. I want to get an athlon xp 2000+ and that will help me to run doom III and that covers any other game coming out anytime in the next year. That processor will set me back $76 when I decide to buy it compared to the p4 2.0ghz at $171. Those people who cook their AMD chips mess something up while installing their HSF units. If I screw up my CPU while I am installing it, I will assume that it is my fault. A BAD WORKMAN BLAMES HIS TOOLS. An athlon xp 2000 beats the pants off the p4 2.0ghz in most tests. For people who want bang-for-buck value, AMD comes out on top. AMD gouges you but Intel gouges you, stabs you, beats you up, then steals your car, and then breaks into your house. Feel like selling one of your cars for a chip? Sorry I like the AMD style of gouging better.

• xwing. on 29th Jan 2003

  Intel puch their processors cause they have so much speed, and make people pay for it. Intel need to be told that the chip speed isn't everything. A fast video card, a large amount of fast RAM,a good hard drive and the reliability of all other components add to the overall speed. I'm getting a new Athlon 1800+ or slower, with 2 high speed hard drives with a RAID card. Set up correctly, that doubles your read and write times to the hard drives, speeding up the pc more so than a faster chip. Save money by buying a slower chip and an extra hdd and RAID card.

• jack. on 6th Feb 2003

  Listen all you people, at the end of the day the best man wins, right now and its intel's deal wit ddr 400 support 533mhz bus a =4.2gb/s, maybe in the future amd will pull out something better. We all buy what we can afford and thats about it. I think the athlons rein is over until it ups its bus speeds and raw cpu speed, it will happen no doubt.

• Steve. on 6th May 2003

  ...sounds like somebody has a few shares of Intel.

• mirrin on 4th Nov 2003

  Alright, here's a little info about the Athalon XP processors. As I can see, quite a few of you noticed that it runs faster than an equivilant Intel, hence the "rating" as opposed to processor speed. This is completely due to the fact that the Athalon XP and Windows XP were developed hand in hand. Each is designed to squeeze the best performance out of the other. Indeed, my Athalon XP 2200+ (1.8 ghz) with 640mb 266mhz DDR can often outperform one of my friend's P4 3Ghz systems with 1GB of 400mhz RAMBUS memory. Note that I say "often". As for reliability issues that some have had with the AMD, particularly burnout, this can almost always be attributed to a bad heat sink installation or clock jumper settings (in the case of burnout), or to the numerous badly designed motherboards which currently saturate the market, particularly those that come pre-installed in any of the popular name-brand systems. If you always buy a motherboard that autodetects the processor and prevents overheat, you can't go wrong. The P4 can be better for high power buisness applications and programming (compile times are always faster on a P4), but for the home user, the AMD is the more effective option.
  Oh, and you can't "upgrade" a system without installing a faster processor. Overclocking can give you a little more oomph, but unless you are willing to install a liquid cooling system (a VERY expensive proposition for the home user), you can never get a serious enough performance increase to boost the processor by any usefully signifigant speed ;-)

• richardsx on 21st Nov 2003

  What? Your friend runs an Athlon XP 2200 and you reckon it's faster than a Pentium 4 @ 3.0GHz do you?
  I just upgraded from an Athlon XP 2200 (as soon as I took it out the machine I stamped on it until it was flatter then flat) and replaced my motherboard and processor for a 3.0GHz P4.
  It turns out as being over twice as fast as the rubbish Athlon XP 2200 and it certainly feels like it in use.