X-bit labs

Annual Hardware Overview: A Glance Back at the Year 2003 (page 3)

Category: Editorial

by Andy Yaschenko

[ 01/08/2004 | 11:51 PM ]

As for the fab, AMD had to look for one by itself and proposed Fab36 (rather than Fab35, as it has been announced before). As you know, the number stands for the year since the foundation of the company, so we’ve got a year-long delay from the original plan. Adding 36 to the year AMD was founded in (1969), we get 2005. That’s the year when the new fabricating facility should be put into operation near Dresden, in the German land of Saxony. It is far from East Fishkill, New York, although that variant was also seriously considered. Money won again: the German offer was more enticing. I really wonder why Infineon wants to change its headquarters?

But back to processors, to our ordinary, desktop processors. Speaking about the Athlon XP and the Pentium 4, though, we’ve got no sensational news. The system bus frequency grew up a little bit: to 400MHz for the Barton based Athlon XP and to 800MHz for the Northwood based Pentium 4. The processor clock-speeds went higher, too. The topmost Athlon XP is now 3200+ rather than 3000+. The Pentium 4 is 3.2GHz instead of 3.0GHz.

That’s quite an unprecedented thing, although quite understandable. Both Athlon XP and Pentium 4 processors on their 130nm cores have practically exhausted their frequency reserve, while the 90nm technology process never succumbed to either of the companies in 2003. I don’t think we should be sad about the slow progress; it’s rather good since both companies had to win their customer with the price factor. The all-out price wars of 2003 brought us price cuts by 30-40% in spring and fall. So, although the frequency cap has gone just a little up, we’ve got much more performance for the same money by the end of the year.

Interestingly, it was the Celeron that added in frequency more than anybody else, from 2.4GHz to 2.8GHz. This is also quite reasonable as it has to fight for its place under the sun with low-end Athlon XP models. By December, Celerons of 2.4-2.6GHz frequency cost roughly the same money as an Athlon XP of the same performance rating, but of course their performance is simply incomparable. By the price-to-performance ratio, mainstream processors from AMD looked perfect in the end of 2003, while the Pentium and the Celeron don’t even stand close to them.

For those who fancy “value” products, AMD presented a surprising, but anyway very pleasing gift in 2003: the new generation of Durons that were in fact Athlon XP processors with a smaller cache-buffer (64KB). Yes, they have the appropriate performance, which is quite enough for many chores. But they have an appropriate price, too. About $35-40 for 1.4-1.6GHz models!

The Athlon 64 had settled in the price range of the Pentium 4 by the end of the year, but its availability is still low: half a million items shipped during the fourth quarter. Intel found itself in a quite unfamiliar situation when its Pentium 4 3.2GHz costs about 10% cheaper than AMD’s Athlon 64 with the 3200+ PR.