AMD uses the EV6 DDR system bus for both its Athlon and Duron processors, and this is one reason their processors continue to perform so well against the Intel competition. The AMD EV6 DDR (Double Data Rate) bus transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock, which effectively turns a 100 or 133 MHz FSB (front-side bus) into a double-pumped 200 MHz or 266 MHz DDR bus.

The AMD Duron is only produced as a 200 MHz DDR part as opposed to the 200/266 DDR Athlon. This means that overall CPU data rates are limited to 1.6 GB/sec, compared to the 2.1 GB/s of the Athlon 266 MHz DDR CPUs. Although the Duron loses out to the high-end Athlon, it still offers far more system bandwidth than either the Intel Celeron (800 MB/sec) or even the 133 MHz Pentium III (1.06 GB/s).

The bandwidth of the memory bus is also important to the Duron, as chipsets such as the KT133A allow asynchronous 133 MHz memory bus speeds when running on a 100 MHz (200 MHz DDR) system bus. When using a VIA Apollo Pro 133/A chipset, the Celeron also has this performance feature, but the more standard i815/E/P/EP chipsets support the 133 MHz memory speed only with a matching 133 MHz processor.

The beauty of the Duron is that while essentially a value processor, it can be used on any motherboard that supports the Athlon. When paired with the proper equipment, the Duron can challenge even Athlon performance. Performance SDRAM motherboard for the Duron include the VIA KT133 and KT133A, and even DDR boards using the AMD 761, VIA KT266, ALi AliMAGiK 1, and SiS 735 chipsets can be matched up with a Duron. Although not especially suited for gaming, there are several low-cost, integrated solutions such as the VIA KT133/KM133 and SiS 730S/SE. For performance-minded gamers on a budget, this also opens up the prospect of buying a well-laid out Duron system now, and then potentially upgrading to a higher speed Athlon at a later date.

Given that the AMD Duron 950 is simply a speed jump to the existing core, let's see how well it stacks up against previous Duron models as well as a baseline Athlon processor. Our Duron 950 comparison platforms include the Duron 900, 850 and 800 using a KT133A motherboard, along with the Athlon 1 GHz to represent AMD's higher end processor..