Introduction:

The AMD Athlon XP 3200+ was released on May 21, 2003, and represented a significant milestone for AMD. It was the last processor in the Athlon XP family and marked the transition to the AMD Athlon 64 architecture, which offered 64-bit computing for the first time. The Athlon XP 3200+ was based on the Barton core, which had a larger L2 cache and higher clock speeds than the previous Thoroughbred and Palomino cores. In this article, we will analyze the performance of the Athlon XP 3200+ and its impact on the computing industry.

Release Day Information:

The Athlon XP 3200+ was released at a price of $464, which was quite expensive at the time. It was designed to compete with Intel’s Pentium 4 processors, which were dominant in the market. The Athlon XP 3200+ had a clock speed of 2.2 GHz, 512 KB of L2 cache, and supported the Socket A (also known as Socket 462) platform. It had a maximum power consumption of 74 watts and was manufactured using a 130nm process.

Benchmark Scores:

To analyze the performance of the Athlon XP 3200+, we will look at benchmark scores from software of the time of release. We will compare the Athlon XP 3200+ to the Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz, which was its main competitor at the time.

In the SPEC CPU2000 benchmark, which measures CPU performance on various tasks, the Athlon XP 3200+ scored 1066 on the integer test and 968 on the floating-point test. The Pentium 4 3.06 GHz scored 1040 on the integer test and 949 on the floating-point test. This shows that the Athlon XP 3200+ had a slight advantage in CPU performance over the Pentium 4 3.06 GHz.

In the 3DMark03 benchmark, which measures graphics performance, the Athlon XP 3200+ scored 4816, while the Pentium 4 3.06 GHz scored 4216. This shows that the Athlon XP 3200+ had a significant advantage in graphics performance over the Pentium 4 3.06 GHz.

Conclusion:

The AMD Athlon XP 3200+ was a significant processor in its time, offering competitive performance to the dominant Intel Pentium 4 processors. Its higher clock speeds and larger L2 cache gave it an advantage in CPU performance, while its superior graphics performance made it a popular choice for gamers. Although the Athlon XP family was eventually phased out in favor of the Athlon 64 architecture, the Athlon XP 3200+ played a key role in establishing AMD as a serious competitor to Intel in the processor market.