Measured in nanoseconds, lower numbers are better. The best AMD Athlon Thunderbird processors range in speed from 750 MHz to 1.1 GHz and are expected to reach 1.5 GHz by the end of 2000. In the last few years, CPU technology has advanced so quickly that there really isn t a low-end processor market. Intel has its Celeron line, running at speeds of up to 700 MHz, and AMD s low-cost alternative. That s more than enough performance to satisfy the average home user and is even enough to easily power the majority of hardware-intensive games on the market.
Larger buffers are better.
AMD s Thunderbird Athlons have 256 KB of L2 cache that runs at the same speed as the processor and use a 200 MHz bus. Older Athlons have the same bus speed and twice the amount of L2 cache, but the performance isn t as good. Intel s PIIIs have 100 MHz or 133 MHz bus speeds, and the new Coppermine models have 256 KB of L2 cache. Older PIIIs have 512 KB of slower L2 cache. Celerons have a slow 66 MHz bus and a hobbled 128KB L2 cache that robs it of performance.