The Athlon and the Phenom are two types of processors created by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). AMD has used the Athlon for many years, while the Phenom is a newer generation of processor.
History
The AMD Athlon line of processors was first introduced on June 23, 1999. The Phenom line of processors began with the Phenom 9500 and 9600 in November 2007.
Function
Athlon processors are primarily used for common tasks that meet the need of the everyday computer user. Phenom processors are generally used for high-end gaming and overclocking enthusiasts. Phenom is meant to provide incredible performance, and is able to deal with heavy workloads.
Comparison
Athlons only support L1 and L2 cache, while Phenoms support L1, L2 and L3 cache. This allows the Phenom to provide additional performance bonuses since it is less reliant on RAM. Phenoms can support DDR2 RAM that has a clock frequency of up to 1066 MHz, while Athlons can only support DD2 with a frequency of 800 MHz. Athlon processors have the advantage in power consumption and heat reduction. As expected with a processor that provides more computing power, the Phenom also consumes more energy and heats up more.
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