Get more on a Duron! (AMD Duron)

Member Name: neopanther

Product:	AMD Duron
Date:	25/09/01 (384 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Good speed, More cache than Intel Celeron

Disadvantages: Not enough Cache, Not good for games, Not good for graphics work

When I finally got my Duron 800Mhz PC I was really excited to try it out! Opening programs and using high levels of processing power and cache levels proved to show it's small Achilles heal.

A Duron is rather like the Celeron in the Intel processor families, it may have a little more cache (64Kb more to be exact) but it was basically designed for the cheaper and budget market. So therefore if you are looking for a cheap PC you would either go for a Intel Celeron or AMD Duron.

Larger companies such as Time, Dell and Evesham tend to go for the Intel Celeron range, although the AMD Athlon is becoming more popular as it showed it’s immense speed and processing power when they went against the new Intel Pentium 4.

AMD are currently at a stage where they are developing new ‘XP’ processors for the new Microsoft operating system. This only applies for the Athlon processors, and they are working on making and developing new Duron processors. They are currently selling the new AMD Duron 1.2Ghz system and the AMD Athlon is available up to a blistering 1.6Ghz. For more information on the more technical specifications and just basic information, please visit the AMD website (http://www.amd.com)

As a home or work based PC the AMD Duron is a good and reliable PC, it’s fast and is compatible with most well known operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 and the new Windows XP.

There have been some rumours that the AMD family processors overheat and have caused numerous problems. I tend to disagree. I have experienced both the AMD Duron and the Athlon, and both I find to have no problems what so ever. The heat sink and fans are a reasonable size and if you wanted to keep the system temperature (inside the case) cool, the I recommend purchasing a ‘System Exhaust Fan’ from your local computer retailer. I have one myself and it greatly decreases the system temperature by a
bout 10 degrees Celsius and the processor temperature by about 5 degrees Celsius. This also depends on the environment your PC is in and whether the room is well ventilated and has a good air flow.

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