HP offers K8 based AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+ option

HEWLETT PACKARD'S US Web site is now offering as a processor option a 32-bit only K8 based AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+ for two of its notebooks - the Compaq R3000Z series and its HP zv5000z counterpart. I haven't seen this chip offered elsewhere. It has 128 KB of level 2 cache and runs at 1.6 GHz, so it may be a HP debut.

We reported last March that HP had gone mainstream with two AMD Athlon 64 based notebooks. For its Compaq offering, the PC vendor also offered as a processor option the K8 based 32-bit only AMD Athlon XP-M 3000+ device. I said at the time about that processor:

"Because the K8 based Athlon XP-M 3000+ is an Athlon 64 with the 64-bit capability switched off, it benefits from most of AMD's eighth generation technologies. It gains a low latency on-die memory controller, HyperTransport for superfast chip-to-chip communication, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and PowerNow technologies to help keep power use in check. Intel SSE2 support is also designed into the chip.

What will disappoint some about this new processor is the 256KB of level two cache and the 1.6GHz clock speed. It will be interesting to see how the benchmark numbers stack up. Let's not forget that it also has 128KB of level one cache as well, and because of its exclusive design, it raises the effective cache total to 384 KB. So with all of the eighth generation performance enhancements mentioned above, it should easily carry on the Athlon performance tradition."

Everything about the K8 based Athlon XP-M 2800+ is the same as its elder brother except the level two cache, which has been halved. Again people might view the cache size as being too small. But the effective total cache when the 128 KB of level 1 cache is added is 256KB. Let's not forget that the AMD Duron only had 64 KB of level two cache (192KB effective total) and it was still enough to better overall the cut-off-at-the-knees P4 based Celeron, which only had 128KB of level two cache (128KB effective total). So with all the eighth generation enhancements already mentioned, the 2800+ should more than hold its own. It will be interesting to see how both these K8 based processors fair against the Pentium M based Celeron M, as that device has 512KB of level two cache and a current top speed of 1.5GHz.

By selling four different cache versions of its K8 based consumer processors - 128KB, 256KB, 512KB, and 1MB level 2 cache (all versions have 128KB of level 1 cache), AMD is making efficient use of dies that it manufactures, which will help to improve yields and bolster the bottom line. µ

See Also
HP goes mainstream with two Athlon 64 notebooks
HP intros 32-bit only K8 based business notebook
Intel Celerons roasted on open fire for poor performance