Revived For Athlon XP
In reaction to the consumers' misconception, AMD reinstated the PR to compare their Athlon XP microprocessors. AMD made sure to advertise the PR number of its microprocessors rather than their raw clock speeds believing that customers would compare the PR of AMD's processors to the clock speed of Intel's processors. The PR number was originally believed to show the clock speed (in megahertz) of an equivalent Pentium 4 processor, but this was never confirmed by AMD. As part of its marketing, AMD even made sure that motherboard manufacturers conspicuously showed the PR number of the microprocessor in the motherboards' POST and not include the processors' clock speeds anywhere except within the BIOS.
The use of the convention with these processors (which are rated against AMD's earlier Thunderbird-based Athlon processors) is less criticized, as the Athlon XP is a capable performer in both integer and FPU operations, and manages to outperform an Intel Pentium 4 at a PR equalling the Pentium 4's clock speed. The Athlon XP (as well as the Athlon 64) PR scheme is not intended to be anything more than a comparison to the same family of processors, and not a direct comparison to Intel or any other company's processor speeds (in raw MHz), despite what sceptics may believe.
Read more about this topic: Performance Rating
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