Athlon vs. Duron CPU

[Pdigmking]

I'm using a Socket A motherboard with a top FSB of 266. My CPU was
running hot (112 F) for a few days and I got nervous about damaging it.
What's in there now is an Athlon 1ghz. So I start thinking maybe I
should have an extra CPU on hand in case the old one burns out or begins
to fail.

I start looking around and I find that I can find used Athlons, but new
Durons so of course the question is... what's better, a used Athlon or a
New Duron?

The Duron's are faster- 1.8ghrz, 266 FSB, but the literature says that
the Duron was a less expensive AMD chip and technically not as good as
the Athlons series. But maybe a faster Duron will be just as good or
better than a slower Athlon? And I'm a little nervous about buying a
used CPU.

Problem is I don't actually know much about CPUs and many of the
benchmark numbers are greek to me.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

TIA

Paul.

 

[Conor]

I'm using a Socket A motherboard with a top FSB of 266. My CPU was
running hot (112 F) for a few days and I got nervous about damaging it.
What's in there now is an Athlon 1ghz. So I start thinking maybe I
should have an extra CPU on hand in case the old one burns out or begins
to fail.

I start looking around and I find that I can find used Athlons, but new
Durons so of course the question is... what's better, a used Athlon or a
New Duron?

The Duron's are faster- 1.8ghrz, 266 FSB, but the literature says that
the Duron was a less expensive AMD chip and technically not as good as
the Athlons series. But maybe a faster Duron will be just as good or
better than a slower Athlon? And I'm a little nervous about buying a
used CPU.

Problem is I don't actually know much about CPUs and many of the
benchmark numbers are greek to me.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Depends entirely on what you use your computer for. For
office/web/email/IM/playing music, the Duron would be better. For video
encoding, ripping MP3s etc, the Athlon.

 

[Mike T.]

I'm using a Socket A motherboard with a top FSB of 266. My CPU was
running hot (112 F) for a few days and I got nervous about damaging it.

Why? That's barely above room temperature. Operating temps above 140F are
common, under heavy loads. If anything, you have an UNDER-heating problem.
You should post the exact make and model number of your cooling solution, it
is kicking ASS. -Dave

 

[Pdigmking]

Why? That's barely above room temperature. Operating temps above
140F are common, under heavy loads. If anything, you have an
UNDER-heating problem. You should post the exact make and model number
of your cooling solution, it is kicking ASS. -Dave

Really? I coulda swore I saw somewhere that the operating range for this
CPU was below 109 F. If I don't have an overheating problem that would be
great because I could turn off one of my fans and quiet things down a
little.

Paul.

 

[Pdigmking]

Why? That's barely above room temperature. Operating temps above
140F are common, under heavy loads. If anything, you have an
UNDER-heating problem. You should post the exact make and model number
of your cooling solution, it is kicking ASS. -Dave

OK, just you know... I'm an idiot. For one thing, I actually have a Duron
CPU in the first place, NOT an Athlon. The second thing, according to the
specs at CPU-world.com the max temp on this sucker is 90c, or 194 F. So
I'm 0 for 2. And yeah... a Duron CPU would work just fine in my machine.

pfffff

Paul.

 

[Mike T.]

Really? I coulda swore I saw somewhere that the operating range for this

CPU was below 109 F. If I don't have an overheating problem that would be
great because I could turn off one of my fans and quiet things down a
little.

Paul.

Below 109F? Well maybe when it is first turned on after being off all
night.

You don't need to worry about it until it gets close to 140F or higher under
load. Anything under 120F is pretty cool. -Dave

 

[Mike T.]

OK, just you know... I'm an idiot. For one thing, I actually have a Duron
CPU in the first place, NOT an Athlon. The second thing, according to the
specs at CPU-world.com the max temp on this sucker is 90c, or 194 F.

Ouch. Just for your own information, you should probably not run any CPU
above 160F. It might actually operate OK at 194F, but I doubt it would be
very stable that hot, or last very long. But earlier, I believe you said
that the temp was 112F. You should be really happy that it's running that
cool. -Dave

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

I'm using a Socket A motherboard with a top FSB of 266. My CPU was
running hot (112 F) for a few days and I got nervous about damaging it.
What's in there now is an Athlon 1ghz. So I start thinking maybe I
should have an extra CPU on hand in case the old one burns out or begins
to fail.

But maybe a faster Duron will be just as good or better than a slower
Athlon? And I'm a little nervous about buying a used CPU.

Here's an AnandTech article where several CPUs, including Athlon XPs
and Durons, are compared on several benchmarks:

www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1927

I have a 1.6 GHz Duron and Athlon XP1800+ (about 1.55 GHz), both 266
MHz FSB, and the Athlon runs maybe 10-20% faster, overall, which isn't
enough to matter to me.

112F (44F) isn't hot for a CPU. I don't know the maximum rated
operating temperature of the 1 GHz Athlon, but for the XP1800+ and 1.6
GHz Duron it's 85C, and I once ran my Duron until the heatsink reached
70C, meaning the CPU was probably at 75C (I wanted to see how well the
heatsink would cool the CPU without the fan; it took > 30 minutes for
it to reach that temperature while running MemTest86).

When buying a used CPU, watch out for bent pins that have been
straightened because they may have microscopic cracks that make them
easy to break off.

 

[Larry Roberts]

I'm using a Socket A motherboard with a top FSB of 266. My CPU was
running hot (112 F) for a few days and I got nervous about damaging it.
What's in there now is an Athlon 1ghz. So I start thinking maybe I
should have an extra CPU on hand in case the old one burns out or begins
to fail.

I start looking around and I find that I can find used Athlons, but new
Durons so of course the question is... what's better, a used Athlon or a
New Duron?

The Duron's are faster- 1.8ghrz, 266 FSB, but the literature says that
the Duron was a less expensive AMD chip and technically not as good as
the Athlons series. But maybe a faster Duron will be just as good or
better than a slower Athlon? And I'm a little nervous about buying a
used CPU.

Problem is I don't actually know much about CPUs and many of the
benchmark numbers are greek to me.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

TIA

Paul.

Is the temp you are quoting 112 F, or 112 C? 112 C would be a
melt down temp, but 112 F is very cool for a CPU. As for which is
better... The Duron has a higher clock, but it only has 64KB of L2
cache. The Athlon has 256KB which can help greatly with games, and
encoding applications. I'd look at getting the fastest Athlon XP CPU
the board will accept. You can problably find a used one for cheap.

 

[spodosaurus]

I'm using a Socket A motherboard with a top FSB of 266. My CPU was
running hot (112 F) for a few days and I got nervous about damaging it.

That's not hot. If it was 112C, it would be hot.

What's in there now is an Athlon 1ghz. So I start thinking maybe I
should have an extra CPU on hand in case the old one burns out or begins
to fail.

Why? Your temps are fine. When you upgrade you might as well upgrade
pretty much the whole system: CPU/mainboard/graphics/RAM/PSU

I start looking around and I find that I can find used Athlons, but new
Durons so of course the question is... what's better, a used Athlon or a
New Duron?

That depends on if you trust the seller of the used Athlon. If so, go
the Athlon. It also depends on if your board supports it. Check with the
mainboard manufacturer's website (or in your manual) to make sure the
CPU you're thinking of buying is on the supported list.

The Duron's are faster- 1.8ghrz, 266 FSB, but the literature says that
the Duron was a less expensive AMD chip and technically not as good as
the Athlons series. But maybe a faster Duron will be just as good or
better than a slower Athlon?

Unlikely in most cases.

And I'm a little nervous about buying a
used CPU.

That's reasonable. Where were you thinking of buying this used CPU from?

Problem is I don't actually know much about CPUs and many of the
benchmark numbers are greek to me.

Make sure you confirm that the CPU comes with a heat sink and WORKING
fan, not one that is slowly failing (but then, they may lie, so...).
Otherwise, be prepared to buy a HSF unit (probably not that big of an
expense).

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

TIA

Paul.

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I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
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transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Pdigmking]

Why? That's barely above room temperature. Operating temps above
140F are common, under heavy loads. If anything, you have an
UNDER-heating problem. You should post the exact make and model number
of your cooling solution, it is kicking ASS. -Dave

LOL. Well, I needed a new power supply a year ago, and I was thinking at
the time that some system instability I was experiencing at the time might
be an overly hot CPU. I was just as clueless then about my CPU temps then
as I was a couple days ago. so I went to my local Micro Center and they had
this entire line of stuff on sale. It's funny because this stuff has all
kinds of lights on it, with neon green cables for someone who has a clear
case. It was a really good price, 500w power supply, and a new CPU fan for
less than a $100. I changed the CPU fan, put new gel on the CPU, and
vavoom, my temps dropped. And boy, does it look pretty in there now when I
open the case for some reason. It's like an aurora borealis in there.

This is an older SOYO socket A mother board, so the temps aren't as hot as
they can be on the newer units in the first place. I can't remember the
actual make of the compenants, but if anyone really wants to know I can
open case and let you know.

When I built this machine five years ago I was trying to build a super
stable work horse, and that's what I got. Even with the 1 gig Duron CPU,
my socket A 133 desktop is twice as fast as my 2.19 gig celeron toshiba
laptop. I've actually timed stuff with a stop watch. I'm a photographer
so I'm using Photo Shop a lot.

Someone suggested that I could just upgrade the whole system. Not for
$50.00 I couldn't. Besides, I never had an actual problem, I just noticed
the temp was 114 once morning when I re-booted after an anti-virus update.
I went ahead and ordered the new Duron. I'll switch it out and keep the
old one one hand as a backup. Won't hurt to speed things up a bit.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Paul.