Do Athlon XP's overclock THEMSELVES???

[Red96TA]

Here's the scenerio...

Went to PC Club and purchased an Athlon XP 2600...installed the bad boy and Windows says that it's a 2600XP...but the processer speed is clicking along at 2.08ghz

Wait a minute...should the 2600XP be running at 1.9ghz? If mine is running at 2.08ghz...doesn't that mean I'm really a 2800XP?

Please explain...

[iooi]

The true default clock speeds of the Athlon XP chips are as follows:

1500 - 1.33 GHz
1600 - 1.40 GHz
1700 - 1.47 GHz
1800 - 1.53 GHz
1900 - 1.60 GHz
2000 - 1.67 GHz
2100 - 1.73 GHz
2200 - 1.80 GHz
2400 - 1.93 GHz
2500 - 1.833 GHz
2600 - 2.133 GHz
2700 - 2.17 GHz
2800 - 2.083 GHz
3000 - 2.167 GHz
3200 - 2.20 GHz


Thanks to the internet for providing the answer...

[Piccoro]

There are also 3 different versions of the 2600+
2600+ version with higher Ghz on a 266mhz FSB.
2600+ version with a little bit lower Ghz on a 333mhz FSB.
2600+ barton core version with a lower Ghz using 512kb L2 Cache on a 333mhz FSB.
I don't know the Ghz for each of them off the top of my head nor do I have time to look em up but again the Internet is your source.
2.08ghz is probably what it is supposed to be running at and no Athlon XPs do not OC themselves.

[Abbadon]

Just to add a little more confusion to this discussion; I recently purchased an Athlon XP 2600+ and the box clearly states that it runs at 1917 mhz with 512 KB L2 Cache. Windows Xp reports a speed of 1.92 Gz.

I was hoping to obtain more speed when I replaced my Athlon XP 2400+ which runs at 2.0 Gigahertz, but I was wrong.

[Piccoro]

Ratings are for those who do not how how the Chip works or the specs (L2 cache/Mhz/FSB) for Athlon chips.
Know the specs and you can ignore the ratings.

[gmatov]

Or, ignore the specs and go by the rating.

AMD calls a 2600 that because in real life it operates on a par with a 2.6 ghz Pentium 4.

If there are 3 actual speeds, all 3 act like a 2.6. Ignore the numbers.

Cheers,

George

[Solarjetman]

Here is why AMD labels their chips as such. The AMD chip line has fewer steps in its pipeline than the Intel line. Thus in general it needs fewer clock cycles to complete the same amount of work. However, since each step is longer than the Intel's, the clock speed must be slower to allow time for it to finish.

An anology would be washing machines. The Intel chip cleans 4 shirts in 10 minutes. Thus a new load (i.e. the clock speed) is entered every ten minutes.

The AMD chip however can hold 8 shirts, but takes 20 minutes (so it has a longer clock cycle).

So which one is better? Its personal preference because both machines will wash the same amount of shirts in 20 minutes.