Product Reviews

Back in our May issue, Buyer became the first European magazine to test a 1GHz AMD Athlon. This month we've another exclusive - AMD's much vaunted Celeron killer, Duron. Up until now, Intel has been safe in the knowledge that Celeron was the fastest budget buy. AMD's K6-2 (and the unpopular K6-3) couldn't touch Celeron when it came to number-crunching power coupled with sheer value for money. Now, after trouncing Intel's powerhouse Pentium III with its Athon chips, AMD is fighting Intel in the budget market.

Duron is a member of the new, improved Athlon family - and represents a significant change for AMD. It's one of two new chips launched this month - the other being a new Athlon, codenamed Thunderbird. Both chips have evolved from AMD's highly successful original Athlon. And both, importantly, will have full-speed on-die cache - the original Athlon's was usually half-speed. Cache memory sits between the processor and system memory, acting as a reservoir for frequently-required information. It's very fast, far quicker than standard SDRAM. In essence, more cache means more speed.

The new Thunderbird Athlon has 128K of Level 1, and 256K of Level 2 cache. As Duron is its budget brother, AMD has built 128K of Level 1 and 64K of Level 2 cache onto the chip.

Duron is also a different shape from old slot-based Athlon chips. The new budget chip fits into Socket A - much the same shape as Intel's new Socket 370. Like Intel, AMD will stop using slot processors, as they involve a lot of expensive plastic casing.

That's the theory. Now to business. Atlas has supplied a 650MHz-based Duron system it hopes will show a clean pair of heels to any Celeron. So, the chips are down. Is Duron any good?

The Meridian D650 is diminutive,

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built inside a squat tower case. This month's Compute-IT, for example, towers above the Duron. Despite this, it's surprisingly spacious inside, and well organised. The Duron itself is hidden under a serious heatsink and fan arrangement, which looks man enough to cool coals in Nevada. The chip is supported by 128Mb of SDRAM and a 13.5Gb IBM hard disk. The drive features Ultra ATA 66 which makes data transfer quicker - always a bonus when you're running demanding software.

Fast graphics are always necessary if you're looking to build a quick system. Atlas has chosen to fit a 32Mb nVidia Riva TNT2 M64 graphics card. The TNT2 chipset is a forebear of nVidia's all-conquering GeForce, so it comes from excellent stock. Sadly, though, it's not a patch on the newer GeForce2, a chip which is very much the darling of hardcore gamers. That said, the TNT2 represents an excellent budget buy and is certainly not ready for the knacker's yard yet.

In our 3DMark 2000 test, the combination of the TNT2 and Duron scored 1894 when running at 1024x768 in 16-bit colour. This is an excellent score, though not as fast as last month's Celeron group test, where the fastest PCs scored in excess of 3000.

Overall, though, the Atlas' performance was blistering. It proved faster than all the Celerons we examined last month, by quite a margin. The Duron-based system scores a massive 2218, while the fastest Celeron in last month's test weighed in at 1662. Indeed, the Atlas' Excel score of 2582 shows just how much raw mathematical power Duron actually possesses.

The Atlas we reviewed arrived with an excellent 17in CTX Ultra Screen monitor. Its tube is good and flat, though its neck (the distance glass to rear) is rather deep. It measures 445mm from front to back, meaning it'll occupy a sizable chunk of desk.

Topping off the Atlas is an ASUS eight-speed DVD and a Mitsumi CD-R/W drive. The pair of Teac 80/2 speakers are something a token gesture: their sound is far from fantastic. Serious bass freaks will look for an upgrade.

First impressions of the Duron processor are very positive. Intel had better stop quaking in its boots and get back to the drawing board. If you're looking for a fast workhorse PC the Atlas Meridian D650 is a great buy - it's fast, cheap, and packs some excellent extras like the CD-R/W and a DVD-ROM drive.