AMD has recently spread a very interesting document among its closest partners proving the recently revealed info about the schedule for the new desktop Athlon XP processor based on 0.13micron Thoroughbred core. It is true: this CPU will appear only in the end of this quarter. According to the document, Thoroughbred will launch between mid-May and the end of June.

Also they claim that the first Athlon XP processor on Thoroughbred core will be marked as 2200+ and will work at 1800MHz. Then in Q3 the rating of Athlon XP (Thoroughbred) will reach 2400+ and by the end of the year the top Athlon XP will be the 2600+ one.

AMD insists that there will be three differences between palomino and the new Thoroughbred:

• CPUID will be changed to 680h;
• Vcore will be reduced down to 1.65V;
• The passive components, which used to be situated in the lower part of the processor, will now be moved to its upper part.

AMD is going to support Socket A infrastructure at least until the end of the year. it means that those Socket A mainboards that are available in the today’s market will have no problems working with Thoroughbred CPUs. The only requirement for the mainboard makers mentioned by AMD touches upon the voltage regulator located on the mainboard and its power. This circuit should be able to work at up to 45A current required by some processor with the core clock frequency exceeding 2GHz.

In conclusion I would like to offer you a comparative table with Thoroughbred’s key features compared to those of Palomino and Thunderbird, borrowed from the same document as mentioned above:

	AMD Athlon (Thunderbird)	AMD Athlon XP (Palomino)	AMD Athlon XP (Thoroughbred)
Infrastructure	Socket A	Socket A	Socket A
# of Transistors (die size)	37 million (120 sq.mm)	37.5 million (128 sq.mm)	37.5 million (80 sq.mm)
Relative Power	-	~20% reduction (vs. Thunderbird)	Further reduction (to be quantified)
Enhanced Thermal Control Features	No	Thermal diode	Thermal diode
QuantiSpeed Architecture	No	Yes	Yes
High-Performance Full Speed Cache	128KB L1 Cache 256KB L2 Cache 384KB Total Cache	128KB L1 Cache 256KB L2 Cache 384KB Total Cache	128KB L1 Cache 256KB L2 Cache 384KB Total Cache
Advanced Front-Side Bus	200MHz and 266 MHz	266MHz	266MHz
3D and Multimedia Instructions	Enhanced 3DNow! technology	3DNow! Professional technology (w/ SSE compatibility)	3DNow! Professional technology (w/ SSE compatibility)