Athlon XP 2100 a Great Processor for Over-Clocking!
Written: Oct 11 '02 (Updated Jul 14 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great price and performance!
Cons: It can overheat if you over-clock it!
The Bottom Line: The Athlon XP 2100 is a great performer weather you over-clock it or not!
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| surferdude7's Full Review: AMD Athlon XP 2100+ , 1.73 GHz (AXP2100BOX) Proces... |
The Athlon XP 2100 is the last of the processors using the Palomino 0.18 micron core, the XP 2200 has the Thoroughbred 0.13 micron core. The XP 2100 runs like it is running at 2100 MHz but in reality it is only a 1.73 GHz processor. AMD has always produced an Athlon processor that runs faster than its actual speed in Hertz.
The AMD Athlon XP processors with QuantiSpeed architecture and 3DNow! were made to work with Windows XP. The Athlon XP processors will run with any Windows platform.
Why review this processor since they have speeds now up to 2800? The Price of around $140 with a cooling fan makes it a bargain chip to have and play with, the 2800 is hard to get and lists for around $500.
The Athlon XP 2100 can run hot especially if you plan to over clock it. You are in good shape as long as you have a fan on the chip and at least a couple of fans exhausting out of your computer.
AMD Athlon XP 2100 Processor Specs
Manufactured: AMD's Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany
1.73GHz Clock speed
Process Technology: 0.18 micron copper process technology
Cache Size L1 - 128KB
Cache Size L2 - 256KB operating at the core frequency
Core Voltage: 1.75v
Die Size: 128mm2
Transistor count: 37.5 million
Infrastructure: Socket A
On-die Thermal Diode
Data Prefetch
Enhanced Translation Look-aside Buffers
3DNOW! Professional instruction set including SSE SIMD instructions
Front-side bus operating frequency of 266MHz DDR via the EV6 double-pumped FSB Socket-462 interface (Socket-A)
Max Die Temp: 90 degrees Celsius
Max Thermal Power: 70.0W
Typical Thermal Power: 62.5W
Icc (processor current) Max: 40.0A
Icc Typical: 35.7A
Any Athlon XP in Stop Grant S1 or ACPI Sleep State (Low Power State):
Nominal Voltage: 1.30V
Max Icc: 1.54A
Typical Icc: .66A
QuantiSpeed architecture
Operation per clock cycle: 9
Integer Pipelines: 3
Floating point pipelines: 3
Full x86 decoders: 3
Cache/prefetch controls
Streaming Controls
DSP/comm. extensions
Over-Clocking
For over clocking the Athlon XP 2100 I used the Epox 8K5A2 motherboard because it is easy to over-clock the processor using the bios on the Epox motherboard. I also used 512MB of PC2700 333MHz NON-ECC DDR DIMM memory.
When you boot up with this mother board the first screen that comes up looks like a DOS screen and displays all your information at the bottom of the screen for your temperatures and settings. This is very helpful in seeing how you have your over-clocking settings.
The Athlon XP 2100 runs at 1.73 GHz and I over-clocked it to 1.9 GHz using the bios on the motherboard. Everything is running smooth and stable, I may try a higher setting in the future but for now I will leave it at 1.9 GHz. Honestly I couldn’t see any performance difference between the two speeds.
Through the BIOS you can over-clock it but be careful and learn all you can about over-clocking before you begin.
To learn more about over-clocking here is a link that can be helpful:
http://www.overclockers.com
Conclusion
The OEM priced processor was $128.26 with only a one year warranty and no cooling fan. The retail version is priced at $140.82, has a 5 year warranty and comes with a cooling fan. For around $12 more it is worth getting the cooling fan plus the 2 extra years of warranty.
Remember if you over-clock it be sure you have plenty of fans for proper ventilation for cooling down the extra heat caused by over-clocking it. Also AMD does not recommend over-clocking, so you are on your own!
For the money and performance the Athlon XP 2100 is a bargain! I highly recommend it and any of the Athlon XP processors.
My prices for the processor were from Multiwave Direct Online Store.
Need a Good Digital Camera? Then check out my review of the Olympus C-750 Ultra Zoom Digital Camera.
Some of my other reviews that may interest you.
AMD Athlon XP 2700 Processor
AMD Athlon XP 2600 Retail
Asus A7N8X Motherboard
EPoX EP-8K7A Socket A ATX Motherboard
Recommended:
Yes
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