Anyone else here played around with the Athlon XP? I won one at that AMD Giveaway, and I've built 2 more systems (for others) with the chip. I've been following it pretty closely since its release, and straight up, this is the chip to beat! There are a lot of interesting points that I was surprised at with the Athlon XP. Most significant is the XP numbering system (1800, 1900, etc.). I thought it was stupid and Cyrix-ish at first, but I've actually come to embrace the marketing-induced naming scheme. The speed is typical AMD Athlon - faster than Intel in most things, and all-around, a speed demon. This is the thing about the Athlon XP that is so special, IMO. And it's been the ONE SINGLE slipping point on AMD chips for many, many years. Quality. AMD's quality, while it had gotten worlds better from the K6 to the Thunderbird Athlon, it still wasn't Intel-like. I'd never have recommended an AMD system for a "mission-critical" situation, or for an application that needed quality and stability first and foremost. That has changed with the Athlon XP. This chip is, from my experiences, every bit as nice of quality as the P4, and it's faster, cheaper, and better supported. The Athlon XP doesn't have nearly the core-crushing probs of earlier athlons, and when motherboards come out that can recognize/use the heat sensor, I think AMD will have truly matured. so that's what I have to say . . . anyone else using Athlon XPs?
The only problem I have with AMD is that sometimes they have issues with the AGP slot running higher then 1x. In games & apps that require a ton of polys and floating point calculations, if your AGP slot is set higher then 2x it can crash the app. DaDakota
DaDakota -- I haven't experienced that with any AMD processors. It likely could be a specific chipset that had/has problems with that. DoD -- don't be a hater just because you're jealous you don't have your own Athlon XP
Problems with AGP slots are usually associated with the chipset or the mobo... rarely the CPU. And I've been using AGP cards for a couple of years and AMD's for about 3 or 4 years and have yet to experience problems with them. GO AMD. ... full disclosure : I own AMD stock.
Built a budget pc for my kid using the Athlon XP 1800 and its a nice chip. Seems alot better than Athlon Thunderbird. It's worked good so far its running like a champ. I still like my P4 2.0 though (just always had better compatibility/stability luck with Intel processors). AMD is headed in the right direction but the confusing advertising (1700+) is kind of bogus.
