Half march, Xbitlabs stated that some AMD Athlon XP “Thoroughbred” processors are “downgraded” versions of faster cores. Technically, this just means AMD sticks an other, lower rated label on their processors.
[Hard]|OCP bought themselves three XP 2500+ processors, and started testing them. Although they all carry the same code as an AMD XP 3000+, they don’t appear to be equally good overclockers:
”It is hard to draw any concrete conclusions from this amount of limited experience but one thing is glaringly obvious. All Bartons are not created equal. Some simply are not up to running at 200MHz FSB even when every other component on your mainboard is up to the task. Looks as if the luck of the draw has a lot to do with it.”
You can read their article here.
