AMD stretches out Athlon XP life with Barton plans

THE LATEST DESKTOP ROADMAP shown to us at the Intel party last night [just kidding, Ed] reveals how AMD will stretch out the Barton to fill in the gap left by the absence of the Clawhammer/Athlon 64.

AMD calls this a "planned longevity roadmap", which translated out of marchitecturese, means everything 32-bit will last a bit longer than before, because of the absence of the Microsoft X86-64 operating system that Mr Clawhammer absolutely seems to require.

Looks to us as if the 3200+ Barton won't be out in mid-year, as we were told last week, but will start to ramp, as the semiconductor firms have it, in Q3 of this year, something which makes us think and think again about Mr Clawhammer a bit.

Bartons will displace the XP 2800+, the 2700+ and the 2600+, while the 2600+ and below will be that old core thing throughout this year.

Barton	Frequency	Voltage	Max Current	Max Thermal	Max Die°	Max Thermal Resistance
Not decided	2.33GHz	1.65V	47.2A	78.2W	85°	.55°/W
3000+	2.17GHz	1.65V	45A	74.3W	85°	.57°/W
2800+	2.08GHz	1.65V	41.12A	68.3W	85°	.64°/W
2500+	1.83GHz	1.65V	41.4A	68.3W	85°	.64°/W

Let's take this a bit at a time. The Barton 3000+, which has a real clock frequency of 2.17GHz and a max die temperature of 85°, is the first off the starting blocks, next week.

Originally slated to deliver 2.25GHz, AMD somehow managed to change it to 2.167GHz because the Barton core is doing well.

Abit, Asus, Epox, Gigabyte, Jetway and MSI will deliver "approved" 333MHz front side bus 48+ amp capable mobos. For 45+ amp approve mobos, Asus, Biostar, Jetway and MSI also support Mr Barton.

The heatsinks are very very specific - AMD recomeends Ajigo, AVC, Dynatron and Fanner right now, but others are being qualified.

AMD will recognise that sometimes people think fans are a bit noisy, so will use copper aluminium heat sinks in their processor on a box chips, with a high density fin array. Some may even be nickel plated, apparently. The estimated noise is less than 34dBA when mounted, and weigh less than 300 grams - plus they'll have a six tab clip and some thermal gunk as well.

AMD also will use something called S2K bus disconnect, to reduce power consumption for Windows apps, and Nvidia, SIS and Via support this feature, which it claims will not affect performance.

And Chimpzilla is still flogging the "megahertz myth" for all it's worth, telling its OEMs they should read the Pabster, SIM HQ and Maximum PC. But not the INQUIRER, obviously.