Just as the Athlon 1.4 GHz solidified AMD's performance high-end, the Duron 950 extends their performance lead in the value market. Using both synthetic CPU testing and application-based suites, the Duron 950 continues to be the performance leader in the value CPU area. The AMD Athlon 1 GHz proved to be a bit too much for the Duron 950 in all areas of testing, which should entice a few "value buyers" to try out a lower-speed Athlon.

If there is one advantage the Duron has over the Athlon, it is in core heat levels. The Duron has always ran much cooler than the Athlon and even in our Duron 950 vs. Athlon 1 GHz testing, the differences were still noticeable. After testing for hours one end, and the office getting quite warm as a result, the Duron remained in the 39-42 degrees Celsius range, while the Athlon 1 GHz quickly jumped to the upper 40's and remained there. Stability with either processor was virtually equal, but the Duron definitely kept the PC cooler and was absolutely rock solid during all benchmarking.

In terms of overclocking, the Duron 950 actually performed much better than expected and posted some impressive core speeds. In these tests, we used both KT133A and AMD 761 motherboards to ensure that FSB limits would not be an issue and that the magic 133 MHz overclock might be a reality.

The initial overclock testing up to 1.11 GHz (117 MHz x 9.5) went off without a hitch and stability testing and benchmarking yielded no adverse results. In fact, at this speed, it leaves the Athlon 1 GHz in the dust and challenges some of the higher-end Athlon processors. Trying to go higher required core voltage increases to 1.7-1.175V and came in at around 1.16-1.17 GHz for this particular reference processor, although we could approach 1.2 GHz with the right amount of tweaking.

The immaculate 133 MHz overclock to 1.26 GHz was attempted and the system did boot up, but it crashed within seconds, even at ultra-high voltages and high-end air cooling. With more sophisticated cooling methods, this speed would probably be a reality, but the 1.1-1.2 GHz range was quite a jump in its own right. Overall core speed at the recommended 1.16 GHz target was just shy of the Athlon 1 GHz, or in the mid to upper 40 degrees Celsius range.

Note: As with all CPU overclocking, you pay your money and you take your chances, and the above overclocking results should not be taken as indicative of any other CPU that the one reviewed and tested herein.

Since the AMD Athlon 950 is the high-end Duron model, we expected the price to be a bit higher than the previous Duron 900. Unfortunately, the Duron 950 just slightly lower priced than the Athlon 1 GHz, and as the benchmarks have illustrated, the Athlon is the faster processor. Until prices go down a bit, the best deal continues to be the Duron 900, which is noticeably less expensive than the Duron 950 and offers similar performance.