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The second generation Athlon, the Thunderbird, debuted on June 5, 2000.

This version of the Athlon shipped in a more traditional pin-grid array ( PGA ) format that plugged into a socket (" Socket A ") on the motherboard ( it also shipped in the slot A package ).

It was sold at speeds ranging from 600 MHz to 1. 4 GHz ( Athlon Classics using the Slot A package could clock up to 1 GHz ).

The major difference, however, was cache design.

Just as Intel had done when they replaced the old Katmai-based Pentium III with the much faster Coppermine-based Pentium III, AMD replaced the 512 kB external reduced-speed cache of the Athlon Classic with 256 kB of on-chip, full-speed exclusive cache.

As a general rule, more cache improves performance, but faster cache improves it further still.