XP 2500+ better than 2600+?!?

[jmoore2001]

My friend told me today that the 2500+ was actually better than the 2600+ because of the barton core vs. thoroughbred. Is this true? He said it's much better for overclocking, games, etc.

[DallasDon]

Amd does not make a 2500 tbred, but it makes both versions of the 2600.

the 2500 barton is favored by overclockers for it's price and 512kb l2 cache, twice that of the tbred.

You usually get what you pay for, so do your research on sale prices.

Here are the processor specs

If that link doesn't work, try this FAQ link

[beppodmime]

Well, if it was consistently better than the 2500+, they would have given it a higher PR rating. Sure, it may perform slightly faster than the 2600+ in some tasks, but like Don said, it's more favored for it's overclockability and price. At around 80-100 bucks for the OEM version, it can be regularly clocked upwards of 2-2.2GHz fairly easily on air.

Other than the additional L2 cache, the cores are identical. Meaning that at it's heart, the Barton cores can do no more instructions per clock than the T-bred b's. The additional L2 cache making the chip faster is really more application specific. Depending on the way the programs operate, the L2 cache may help, or it may do nothing at all. And if it does nothing for the program, well then it's basically a 1.83 GHz (2500+) chip versus the same chip running at 2.08GHz (333 MHz FSB 2600+). This is all assuming no overclock.

[JayMan]

So all 2500+'s are bartons? I'll have to remember that!

JayMan

[jmichna]

Originally posted by JayMan
So all 2500+'s are bartons? I'll have to remember that!

JayMan

For right now, that is correct. All 2500's are Bartons. Refer to this Athlon XP chart.

Darn TIMO editor won't parse the URL properly. Here is the address (note the http spacing)
h t t p://139.95.253.214/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=51,E=0000000000109228722,K=3172,Sxi=6,Case=obj (1224)

All Bartons are "Model 10" and all Throughbreds are "Model 8" CPUs.

If ever in doubt, check the OPN identifying number of the chip itself. The second to the last digit is a "3" for all TBreds and a "4" for all Bartons

[RamonGTP]

A 2600+ tbred is faster than a 2500+ barton... The nameing conventions put forth by AMD take the extra performance from the increasead cache into consideration when giving them their ratings... However, a Barton 2500+ can very easily be overclocked to 3200+

[Darthgary]

With proper cooling that is, stock HSF wont cut it at 3200+ althought it may at 2800+.