The AMD Duron is an x86-compatible computer processor manufactured by AMD. It was released in the summer of 2000 as a low-cost alternative to AMD's own Athlon processor and the Pentium III and Celeron processor lines from rival Intel.

The Duron is pin-compatible with the Athlon and virtually indistinguishable from it, operating on the same motherboards in most cases. The only external way to tell is by reading the small text on the core, stating either "Athlon" or "Duron". The Duron has the same 64 + 64 KB of L1-Cache as the Athlon, but only 64 KB of L2-Cache, as compared to 256 KB on the more expensive Athlon series. Because of this, the Duron generally lags behind the Athlon on business applications, but keeps up in floating-point operations thanks to its powerful FPU, which is identical to the Athlon's. The original Duron was limited to operating on a 100 MHz front-side bus speed (FSB 200), while the Athlon at the time could run on a bus clock of 133 MHz (FSB 266). Later Durons supported a 133MHz bus (FSB 266) while Athlon XP ran at 166/200 MHz FSB (FSB 333/400).

The original Duron, on the "Spitfire" core, was manufactured in 2000 and 2001 at speeds ranging from 600 to 950 MHz. It was based on the "Thunderbird" Athlon core. The second-generation Duron, the "Morgan" core, is sold in speed grades between 900 and 1300 MHz, and is based on the "Palomino" Athlon XP core.

In 2003, AMD released several new iterations of the Duron, based on the "Thoroughbred" Athlon XP core, in this case, codenamed "Applebred". The "Applebred" Duron is available in 1.4 GHz, 1.6 GHz and 1.8 GHz forms, all on a 133MHz (FSB 266) bus by default. Enthusiast groups have discovered these Durons to be largely rebadged, unmodified, Thoroughbred cores, with some enthusiasts successfully turning their Durons into fullblown Athlon XP's with 256 KB of L2-Cache.

The Duron was discontinued in 2004 and succeeded by the Sempron.

Models

Duron "Spitfire" (Model 3, 180 nm)

• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 64 KB, fullspeed
• MMX, 3DNow!
• Socket A (EV6)
• Front side bus: 100 MHz (FSB 200)
• VCore: 1.50 V - 1.60 V
• First release: June 19, 2000
• Clockrate: 600 MHz - 950 MHz

Duron "Morgan" (Model 7, 180 nm)

• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 64 KB, fullspeed
• MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
• Socket A (EV6)
• Front side bus: 100 MHz (FSB 200)
• VCore: 1.75 V
• First release: August 20, 2001
• Clockrate: 900 MHz - 1300 MHz

Duron "Applebred" (Model 8, 130 nm)

• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 64 KB, fullspeed
• MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
• Socket A (EV6)
• Front side bus: 133 MHz (FSB 266)
• VCore: 1.50 V
• First release: August 21, 2003
• Clock rate: 1400, 1600, 1800 MHz

See also

List of AMD Duron microprocessors

External links

• Duron information from AMD
• Budget CPU Shootout - Popular hardware review website Anandtech compares low priced CPUs