Introduction

Since the release of the Athlon 64 back in September 2003, many people might have thought that Socket A would die out and make way for the new K8 architecture. However, this has proven not to be the case; new motherboards with awesome overclocking features such as the DFI LanParty Rev. B and DFI Infinity Rev. A have given the K7 architecture a breath of fresh air. Along with these new motherboards, we have seen the arrival of the Mobile Barton. They've given the budget enthusiasts new hope of keeping up with the latest and greatest processors from both Intel and AMD, at a very respectable price.

Firstly, what are the differences between the mobile Bartons and the desktop Bartons? Visually there are no differences between the processors - they use the same pin layout and both run on Socket A.

Here's an early desktop 2500+, pre week 39 so it has an unlocked multiplier. Desktop Bartons with unlocked multipliers are no longer available. Since week 39 of 2003, they've been super-locked, and all of the old methods of unlocking the processors no longer work.
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As you can see, there are no external differences - the die is the same size on both CPUs and the layout is exactly the same. The differences between these two processors are all on the inside.
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