AMD’s Athlon XP 2100+

This is AMD’s last processor featuring the Palomino core used in all XP processors till now. All new CPUs from XP 2200+ onwards will be based on the Thoroughbred core, (0.13-micron manufacturing process). The only novelty in the Athlon XP 2100+ is an additional 67 MHz compared to XP 2000’s.

We tested the CPU using a Gigabyte GA-7DX motherboard with 256 MB RAM, GeForce2 GTS and a 7200 rpm IBM Deskstar hard drive. We used the XP 1900+ for comparison and, as expected, there was a minor increase in performance. However, it seems to be getting a tough competition from the latest Intel P4 2.4 GHz. The P4 is ahead by a very small margin in some of the benchmarks, namely 3DMark 2001, Business and Content Creation Winstone 2001 (see the results table on the previous page). As far as DivX encoding and Quake 3 Arena results go, the P4 is ahead by a wide margin, while the Athlon 2100 is ahead in Serious Sam and MP3 encoding by a small margin. 

The Bottom Line



 The XP 2100+ is good for those wanting to squeeze out every ounce of performance they can from their processor. So if you need a fast processor in a hurry, the XP 2100+ is a good choice, or else you may want to wait for the next major release from AMD, the Thoroughbred.

Anuj Jain at PCQ Labs