AMD positions the Athlon against its rival, the Intel Pentium. == Brand history == === K7 design and development=== The first Athlon processor was a result of AMD's development of K7 processors in the 1990s.
AMD founder and then-CEO Jerry Sanders aggressively pursued strategic partnerships and engineering talent in the late 1990s, working to build on earlier successes in the PC market with the AMD K6 processor line.
One major partnership announced in 1998 paired AMD with semiconductor giant Motorola to co-develop copper-based semiconductor technology, resulting in the K7 project being the first commercial processor to utilize copper fabrication technology.
When DEC was sold to Compaq in 1998 and discontinued Alpha processor development, and Sanders brought most of the Alpha design team to the K7 project.
It made its debut as AMD's high-end processor brand on June 23, 1999.
This added to the previously acquired NexGen K6 team, which already included engineers such as Vinod Dham. === Original release=== The AMD Athlon processor launched on June 23, 1999, with general availability by August 1999.
Subsequently, from August 1999 until January 2002, this initial K7 processor was the fastest x86 chip in the world.
Wrote the Los Angeles Times on October 5, 1999, "AMD has historically trailed Intel’s fastest processors, but has overtaken the industry leader with the new Athlon.
While CPU processing performance is in the same ballpark, the Athlon 3000G uses Radeon Vega graphics, which are rated as more powerful than the Pentium's Intel UHD Graphics. == Generations == ===Athlon Classic (1999)=== The AMD Athlon processor launched on June 23, 1999, with general availability by August 1999.
Rmax: 794 GFLOPS. ==See also== CPU features table List of AMD Duron microprocessors List of AMD Phenom microprocessors List of AMD Opteron microprocessors List of AMD Sempron microprocessors ==References== ==External links== Website Computer-related introductions in 1999 Advanced Micro Devices x86 microprocessors Advanced Micro Devices microarchitectures Superscalar microprocessors
By the summer of 2000, AMD was shipping Athlons at high volume and the chips were being used in systems by Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and Fujitsu Siemens Computers among others. ===Later Athlon iterations=== The second generation Athlon, the Thunderbird, debuted in 2000.
Among them: In 2000, several American students claimed to have built the world's least expensive supercomputer by clustering 64 AMD Athlon chips together, also marking the first time Athlons had been clustered in a supercomputer. The PRESTO III, a Beowulf cluster of 78 AMD Athlon processors, was built in 2001 by the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
A number of mobile processors were also released, including the Corvette models, and the Dublin model among others. ====Palomino==== On May 14, 2001, AMD released the Athlon XP processor.
The third-generation Athlon, code-named Palomino, came out on October 9, 2001 as the Athlon XP, with the suffix signifying extended performance and unofficially referencing Windows XP.
In November 2001, AMD released a 1.2 GHz Athlon 4 and a 950 MHz Duron.
Among them: In 2000, several American students claimed to have built the world's least expensive supercomputer by clustering 64 AMD Athlon chips together, also marking the first time Athlons had been clustered in a supercomputer. The PRESTO III, a Beowulf cluster of 78 AMD Athlon processors, was built in 2001 by the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Subsequently, from August 1999 until January 2002, this initial K7 processor was the fastest x86 chip in the world.
Introduced in June 2002, the initial A version was mostly a direct die shrink of the preceding Palomino core, but did not significantly increase clock speeds over the Palomino.
That year it ranked 439 on the Top 500 list of supercomputers. In 2002, a "128-Node 256-Processor AMD Athlon Supercomputer Cluster" was installed at the Ohio Supercomputer Center at the University of Toledo. Rutgers University, Department of Physics & Astronomy.
AMD released the Athlon XP the following year, and the Athlon XP's immediate successor, the Athlon 64, was an AMD64-architecture microprocessor released in 2003.
By 2003, the Pentium 4 had become more than competitive with AMD's processors, and Barton only saw a small performance increase over the Thoroughbred-B it derived from, insufficient to outperform the Pentium 4.
The K7 derived Athlons such as Barton were replaced in September 2003 by the Athlon 64 family, which featured an on-chip memory controller and a new HyperTransport bus. Notably, the 2500+ Barton with 11x multiplier was effectively identical to the 3200+ part other than the FSB speed it was binned for meaning seamless overlocking was possible more often than not.
Mobile XPs were not multiplier-locked, making them popular with desktop overclockers. ===Athlon 64 (2003-2009)=== The immediate successor to the Athlon XP, the Athlon 64 is an AMD64-architecture microprocessor produced by AMD, released on September 23, 2003.
A number of variations, all named after cities, were released with 90 nm architecture in 2004 and 2005.
The Athlon 64 X2 was released in 2005 as the first native dual-core desktop CPU designed by AMD, and the Athlon X2 was a subsequent family based on the Athlon 64 X2.
A number of variations, all named after cities, were released with 90 nm architecture in 2004 and 2005.
Versions released in 2007 and 2009 utilized 65 nm architecture. ===Athlon 64 X2 (2005-2009)=== The Athlon 64 X2 was released in 2005 as the first native dual-core desktop CPU designed by AMD using an Athlon 64.
While the Athlon name was originally used for combined CPU/GPU processors with the GPU disabled, after the 2007 launch of the Phenom processors, the Athlon name was also used for mid-range processors, positioned above brands such as Sempron.
Versions released in 2007 and 2009 utilized 65 nm architecture. ===Athlon 64 X2 (2005-2009)=== The Athlon 64 X2 was released in 2005 as the first native dual-core desktop CPU designed by AMD using an Athlon 64.
The original Brisbane Athlon X2 models used 65 nm architecture, and were released in 2007. ===Athlon II (2009-2012) === Athlon II is a family of central processing units.
Introduced in 2009, Athlon II was a dual-core family of Athlon chips. A USD$55 low-power Athlon 200GE with a Radeon graphics processor was introduced in September 2018, sitting under the Ryzen 3 2200G.
Versions released in 2007 and 2009 utilized 65 nm architecture. ===Athlon 64 X2 (2005-2009)=== The Athlon 64 X2 was released in 2005 as the first native dual-core desktop CPU designed by AMD using an Athlon 64.
Initially a dual-core version of the Athlon II, the K-10-based Regor was released in June 2009 with 45 nanometer architecture.
This was followed by a single-core version, Sargas, followed by the quad-core Propus, the triple-core Rana in November 2009, and the Llano 32 nm version released in 2011. ===Zen-based Athlon (2018-present)=== The Zen-based Athlon with Radeon graphics processors was launched in September 2018 with the Athlon 200GE.
This was followed by a single-core version, Sargas, followed by the quad-core Propus, the triple-core Rana in November 2009, and the Llano 32 nm version released in 2011. ===Zen-based Athlon (2018-present)=== The Zen-based Athlon with Radeon graphics processors was launched in September 2018 with the Athlon 200GE.
Introduced in 2009, Athlon II was a dual-core family of Athlon chips. A USD$55 low-power Athlon 200GE with a Radeon graphics processor was introduced in September 2018, sitting under the Ryzen 3 2200G.
This was followed by a single-core version, Sargas, followed by the quad-core Propus, the triple-core Rana in November 2009, and the Llano 32 nm version released in 2011. ===Zen-based Athlon (2018-present)=== The Zen-based Athlon with Radeon graphics processors was launched in September 2018 with the Athlon 200GE.
The modern Zen-based Athlon with a Radeon Graphics processor was introduced in 2019 as AMD's highest-performance entry-level processor. Athlon comes from the Ancient Greek ἆθλον (athlon) meaning "(sport) contest", or "prize of a contest", or "place of a contest; arena".
The modern Athlon 3000G was introduced in 2019, and was positioned as AMD's highest-performance entry-level processor.
Despite its limitations, the Athlon 200GE performed competitively against the 5000-series Intel Pentium-G, displaying similar CPU performance but an advantage in GPU performance. On November 19, 2019, AMD released the Athlon 3000G, with a higher 3.5 GHz core clock and 1100 MHz graphics clock compared to the Athlon 200GE also with two cores.
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