‘Barton’ in the Back Office
Naturally, AMD thinks its best processor for one- and two-way servers and workstations, with both full-speed 32-bit performance and a migration path to 64-bit software, is its new Opteron. But there are plenty of entry-level enterprise servers running demanding 32-bit applications, yet not the colossal databases or specialized programs that can benefit from 64-bit addressing. So the CPU company has hiked the speed of its 32-bit Athlon MP with a new 2800+ model.
Priced at $275 in 1,000-unit quantities, the Athlon MP 2800+ is based on the 0.13-micron-process copper “Barton” core with 512K of Level 2 cache and a 266MHz front-side bus. It features the same Socket A packaging as previous Athlon MP processors, with a redesigned 2.133GHz core to make room for the doubled L2 cache.
Like all Athlon MPs, the 2800+ boasts SmartMP technology for high output and scalability with dual point-to-point system buses and an optimized cache coherency protocol to manage data and memory traffic. It’s optimized for multithreaded, mission-critical, 32-bit applications, with a superscalar, fully pipelined floating-point unit.