Incredible CPU (AMD Duron)

Member Name: Local

Product:	AMD Duron
Date:	06/07/02 (195 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Cheap, Upgradeable

Disadvantages: Thermal protection, The MHz war, Fragile

I sell systems based on Duron's. In today's market price is everything and only the Duron can deliver on its claims at such a low price.

The Duron is still cheaper and faster than even the latest P4 Celeron, as mentioned on Tom's Hardware Guide. This is reflected in typical application benchmarks where the all-important integer, fpu and multimedia scores are noted. Quite remarkable for such a "budget" processor. AMD have Intel licked here for the moment, in the budget sector. If AMD users get bored with the Duron all they have to do is get an Athlon XP. You can't loose.

The money you save could easily be spent on a better grafix card - it's not the MHz what matters when playing 3D games, it's the speed of the grafix card. Especially on a 17" monitor.

The hardest things for AMD to combat are Intel's financial might and technical resources. Intel will keep pushing up the MHz and people will still be sold on this idea, so AMD will no doubt once again come up with something better and cheaper.

One advantage the Intel CPU's do have at the moment is thermal protection. The AMD CPU's and their associated motherboards are only just catching up. Hence the need for very thorough cooling solutions. This is also one area alone where the Via/Cyrix MIII CPU's beat both Intel and AMD hands down.

AMD had a winner with the Duron. They still have a winner for those who like to see the underdog win for a change. They are cheap, fast and proven. A winner!

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