In the absence of acts and figures to support, whether the claim that 'it is a Leading Global Provider of Innovative Microprocessor and Graphics solutions' by AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) on its website is a question of debate. Ever since AMD based in Sunnyvale, California was founded in 1969, its core businesses have been to provide microprocessor and graphics and media solutions for the computer, communications, and consumer electronics industries.

Today with corporate locations at Austin, Texas; and Markham, Ontario, 16,500 employees spread across 80 locations and manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, AMD's success seems to be driven by what it calls "customer-centric innovation," its guiding principle. The company claims that it has shipped more than 240 million PC processors worldwide. And that its processors undergo extensive testing to help ensure compatibility with Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Windows NT, Windows 2000, as well as Linux and other PC operating systems and also conduct rigorous research, development, and validation to help ensure the continued integrity and performance of its products. This article is about the 'AMD Athlon Duron'.

On its site AMD has provided a utility as a service to customers and resellers to ensure a positive user experience with the AMD Athlon Duron processor. Due to the complex nature of the issues affecting reliable processor operation on a motherboard, AMD selects the most popular new motherboards to evaluate using an internally developed suite of BIOS, electrical, and software tests. According to them, this test suite has been developed to ensure compliance with motherboard design guidelines for the Athlon Duron processor. To ensure reliable operation, the processor should be used in conjunction with one of the recommended motherboards. The utility enables the user to select the processor from out of the 16 models of AMD Athlon Duron processor, the form factor – ATX, SFF etc, the vendor, and any other feature. The company also warns that any attempt to operate the AMD Athlon Duron processor without a suitable cooling solution will result in permanent damage to the processor and potentially other components within the system and that recommended memory for your Duron processor-based system may be specific to the type of motherboard you plan to use.

The AMD Athlon Duron processor operates at four different speeds which are: 1.3GHz, 1.2GHz, 1.1GHz and 1GHz. Its key features includes support for 3DNow!™ Professional technology and hardware data pre-fetch, which allows end users to have an enhanced multimedia experience and improved productivity. The AMD Duron processor is a derivative of the award-winning AMD Athlon™ processor, and includes sophisticated cache architecture with 192kB of total on-chip cache, a high speed 200MHz front-side bus and a superscalar floating point unit. It also includes 128kB of on-chip level one (L1) cache memory and 64kB of full-speed, on-chip level two (L2) cache memory. You can find more information on processors by Amd at http://www.amdathlonprocessors.com

The AMD Duron processor is a derivative. Although the two processors are related, there are key differences in the CPUs and the platforms designed to support them. The AMD Athlon processor features more full-speed, on-chip cache memory. The AMD Duron processor was designed to consume less power than the AMD Athlon processor, thereby enabling lower cost systems. Additionally, Duron processor-based PCs are likely to employ lower cost memory and graphics solutions, including low cost DDR memory and Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) graphics. The AMD Duron processor supports both PC1600 and PC2100 DDR memory.

The Athlon Duron processor is compatible with the Windows XP Home and Professional operating systems.