Frostytech has posted a review on the Athlon 800Mhz processor.
As a quick overview, the Thunderbird series of Athlons represents AMD´s answer to the 1:1 core to cache speed ratio Pentium III´s (Coppermine) that have been available for quite some time now. I can recall when the Pentium III Katmai (512K cache half speed cache) CPU´s were getting beaten around by the old Slot A Athlons (with 512K variable speed cache). Intel answered with their 256KB 1:1 core to cache speed Pentium III´s. They were able to outpace the current Athlons at the time because the 256KB of L2 cache on the new Pentium III´s allowed Intel to take the performance lead over the Athlon. Now we are at a time where the Pentium III, and Athlon are fighting on a more even ground (in regards to L2 cache speed and size). Unfortunately for Intel and the Pentium III, the Athlon does have some other obvious advantages (aside from price). And that is the fact that the Pentium III only has 32KB of L1 cache, and the Athlon has 128KB.Read more
