AMD Athlon XP 1900+ Review
By Vince Freeman :
November 27, 2001
Introduction
During the time between the Thunderbird and Palomino cores, it was tough being an AMD system buyer. Intel was racking the clock speed on their flagship Pentium 4, while AMD seemed to be permanently mired at the Athlon 1.4 GHz. It was even worse watching AMD release Athlon 4 mobile, Athlon MP server and even Duron processors sporting the new and improved Palomino/Morgan core design, while the desktop market salivated over its release on the performance desktop end.
Thankfully, that wait ended with the debut of the Athlon XP 1800+ and now the shoe is definitely on the other foot. The Athlon XP 1800+ exhibited superb performance in a wide range of applications and we witnessed some real improvements in SSE-enabled applications and games; a place where Intel has ruled supreme for some time now. The Athlon XP also heralded the new 1500+-1800+ AMD model numbers, which were initially quite controversial, but of late seem to have been accepted with some resignation. After all, when you've got the top end processor on the market, the naming conventions become a lot less important.
So what does AMD do for an encore? How about the Athlon XP 1900+, sporting a full 1.6 GHz clock speed! While only a nominal 67 MHz core speed increase over the Athlon XP 1800+, the Athlon XP 1900+ still deserves our attention. It's yet another case of the fast getting faster and for those seeking the very best in AMD performance systems, this seemingly small core speed jump may translate into some noticeable increases in gaming performance.
