OK. After I recently purchased an Applebred Duron ( 1.6MHZ ) from Newegg, I saw in some of the reviews people were saying there was an "A" and a "B" core related to these CPUs. They said the "B" core was a very overclockable CPU and the "A" couldn't be OC'ed as much due to a locked multiplier. I checked the ID pages I saved to my drive earlier ( From the ID links here on the forum ) and there is no mention of identifying it as either.

Is there any truth to there being an "A" and "B" core among the Applebred Durons and if so, how can you tell one from the other?
I do plan on trying to overclock it a bit for more performance with my board regardless of how this turns out, but I want to know which of these I may have. My sig indicates the specs on the machine I am using it with, namely the backup PC.

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Originally posted by: Zarot
OK. After I recently purchased an Applebred Duron ( 1.6MHZ ) from Newegg, I saw in some of the reviews people were saying there was an "A" and a "B" core related to these CPUs. They said the "B" core was a very overclockable CPU and the "A" couldn't be OC'ed as much due to a locked multiplier. I checked the ID pages I saved to my drive earlier ( From the ID links here on the forum ) and there is no mention of identifying it as either.

Is there any truth to there being an "A" and "B" core among the Applebred Durons and if so, how can you tell one from the other?
I do plan on trying to overclock it a bit for more performance with my board regardless of how this turns out, but I want to know which of these I may have. My sig indicates the specs on the machine I am using it with, namely the backup PC.

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Here is an older discussion on this. I guess the B core's are 1.4,1.6, & 1.8 defective XP cpu's that sometime work as full blown XP's instead of Duron's?

AMD board


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AMD 64 3700+ San Diego 1mb L2, ASUS A8v, 2.0gb Corsair Twin-X, PNY 6800GS(T) 256mb 16/6,WD 250gb 7200/8, Sony DRU-710a,LG DVD-16x, Windows XP Pro SP2, Enermax Noisetaker 420w, DSL

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Thanks for the reply Aetius. After reading the material from the link you posted, seems to be that some of the things I've seen about this may have some fact behind them after all - namely that some of these CPU's are indeed "Crippled" versions of an XP CPU. This may explain why some are saying this CPU actually has a L2 cache of 256KB cache, but only 64KB of it can be used.

ALL the Durons Applebreads are physically Thoroughbreds B (CPUID 6-8-1) but with 3/4 Cache L2 disabled. It can be either because it was damaged or because there was demand for those models and a few full working Thoroughbreds had to be sacrificed in order to sell them. There was a soldering modification than you can works for Applebreads and another one for Thortons (Bartons with half of its Cache L2 disabled) to attempt to enable it. However, as far that I know it only works on Processors with Unlocked Multiplier, besides, if the Cache L2 is really damaged then you will have stability issues and you should disable it again.

I had an Applebred Duron 1800 - unlocked. Most of them overclock well due to their low voltage (1.5v), and that includes the 1400, 1600 and 1800 models.

My 1800 would hit 2200MHz on a cheap Asrock motherboard (which aren't even considered overlockers' boards). It only require +5% core voltage to run at this speed.

I did not mod this chip, because to be honest it did everything I asked it to and I had reservations about taking pot luck with cache integrity. The Duron is not the same as the Celeron, it's not really that much of a budget chip due to it's comparatively superior L1/L2 cache relationship. The Applebred can even slug it out against the P4.

As such I was running things like DVD Shrink, Far Cry and NFS Underground as well as Paintshop Pro. In fact, everything I loaded ran fast and multitasking was good. Compared to the 2.6GHz Celeron there was no choice especially in games, and when I upgraded to a Thoroughbred 2600+ (again unlocked, able to hit 2200MHz), there was a difference but it was less than I expected.

For most tasks I don't think you're going to be disappointed with that Duron. As suggested, if you raise the FSB speed (and hence the resulting core speed) then you can to an extent make up for the loss of L2 cache.

BTW this Applebred..I used it in a cheap system (around $240) for a a relative, and he was blown away by it since it was replacing his 2.6GHz Celeron - and this was at stock speeds. I did shed a tear inside when I let it go, though


Links

Duron Applebred vs. Athlon XP Thoroughbred: http://www.madshrimps.be/?acti...rticle&articID=106
The day a Duron rode into Celeron County: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howd...?i=1927&p=1

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. AMD CPU Data: http://www.tomshardware.com/20.../amd...ult/page23.html & http://www.amdboard.com/amdid.html
. Belarc Advisor: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
. GPU Comparison for Laptops: <a href="http://www.notebookche

Thanks for the info Wildcard. The fact this CPU is superlocked shouldn't matter so much, since I'm only going for a mild OC'ing with it. Coupled with the memory I am using with it, it should be a capable performer. I'm going to order a couple more of these CPU's and maybe use one as a lab rat for the extra L2 cache. This mod as stated by zir blazer is easily undone and really wouldn't hurt anything by trying it. As for the other mods my research has turned up, I'll get my hands on a genuine mobile CPU instead of risking damaging these.