CPU:AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Review (Barton Core) :: Introduction

Since its onset AMD has been the other side of the coin to the Intel giant's relentless drive, being always just a step ahead or one behind them in the race for the desktop and recently workstation/server environment technology lead. Usually and traditionally AMD has been backed up by VIA who supports them by way of chipset development but recently VGA giant NVIDIA has joined those ranks as well adding another dimension to the partner group by way of funding and R&D.

AMD has revamped their already robust Barton core adding a new FSB support via their partner's latest 400MHz chipset boards. Geared up and ready to go AMD is trying their best to beat the competition in this never ending battle of the fastest CPU and the 3200+ marks a new stone in the road for the good folks in Texas. Having good relationships and solid team play between AMD and those that support them has added a new angle to the AMD game plan allowing for a much more robust platform that is becoming more and more compatible and viable as the AMD roadmap drives on.

VIA as well will have a new chipset that allows for the 400MHz FSB spec but they are a bit late in the game, which for them is quite the oddity as they are usually first out of the gate with any new AMD chipset but due to efforts being focused on their KT600 chipset they have fallen slightly behind NVIDIA in this latest venture. The SiS' 748 chipset will hit market soon as well performing with a 400MHz bus featuring single channel DDR400 memory for the lower end or budget PC market.

It also sports the SiS' proprietary MuTIOL 1G technology that connects the 748 North Bridge to the 963L South Bridge. ATA RAID is still not available via the chipset and requires a third party chip to incorporate that feature on the motherboard but hopefully that will soon be rectified. We will see more development as far as chipsets go as we drive on further into this year so keep your eyes open. nForce 2 400MHz Chipsets.

I was thinking this chipset upgrade was something new on the block but low and behold my sturdy ASUS A7N8X Deluxe actually has this on it, which was of course news to me. I guess a quick BIOS FLASH releases the inner potential power of the 400 Ultra, something that was done by the good folks over at NVIDIA saving me the effort. There are two flavors of the new 400MHz chipsets, one for the lower end consumer being the single channel memory support nForce 2 standard and the dual channel 400MHz enthusiasts chipset the nForce 2 Ultra 400. What we set out to do here is compare the latest offering from AMD the 3200+ with Intel's latest 3.0GHz P4 CPU to distinguish who is the actual speed king in this race for CPU domination.

North Bridge: NVIDIA® nForce2 SPP (Ultra 400)

South Bridge: NVIDIA® nForce2 MCP-T