Performance on a Budget

This latest processor from AMD is aimed at the mid-segment of the market, and is based on the same Morgan core of the older

Durons. But it runs at a higher clock speed of 1.3 GHz. It uses Socket 462 like all AMD processors and has a double pumped FSB of 100 MHz (200 MHz effective). It has 128 KB L1 and 64 KB L2 cache.

We tested the processor on an ECS K7S5A motherboard, with 128 MB RAM, a GeForce2 MX-200, and an IBM 7200 RPM hard drive. Scores in Business Winstone and Content Creation Winstone 2001 was 38.9 and 40.7 respectively. These scores actually almost match an Intel P4’s 1.5 GHz, and are therefore more than 



impressive. 

In addition, we tested the processor on two new applications–MP3 and DivX encoding. Converting a 423 seconds audio track to MP3 using LAME took 43 seconds,

and a 641 seconds video track took roughly 358 seconds to convert to DivX. These are very processor intensive tasks, and the Duron seems to perform well under such workloads.

Finally in gaming, we obtained 117 fps in Quake III Arena at 640x480x16 resolution.

The bottom line: Clearly, even though the Duron range is targeted at those who can’t afford to pay for an

Athlon, the XP 1500+ model is still a star performer. If you are in the market looking for a well-priced system, we highly recommend it. Pair it up with enough memory, a good video card and HDD and you’ll have a powerful machine in your hands.

Anuj Jain at PCQ Labs