AMD Athlon 4 - The Palomino is Here

Judge Barton presiding?

It's funny how rumors get started. The latest one happened to be the source of the name for AMD's next Athlon core after Thoroughbred. The Barton core will be the second 0.13-micron Athlon core and it will be hitting the streets in the second half of 2002, well over a year from now so it is too early to announce specs as they may change. The name Barton comes from the first Triple Crown winner (a horse race), a horse named Sir Barton. If you consider that the rest of the codenames on AMD's Athlon roadmap are from horses then this makes sense. That isn't to say that there aren't other internal meanings for the name among the folks at AMD.

In terms of the actual name of the processor based on the Barton core, it will most likely continue to be Athlon. AMD hasn't spent all this time creating the Athlon brand just to throw it away in a year. But enough talk about names, what's the real deal behind Barton?