Counter-Strike, the First Duron and the Last Pentium 3 (PCGH-Retro, June 19)

…1999: No one has any idea yet which long-running hit will be posted on the website of Gooseman and Cliffe as a beta version on June 19, 1999. The first Counter-Strike still has many bugs, the maps are not yet mature. Nevertheless, over 10,000 visitors came to the site within a few weeks, and the basis for the legend Counter-Strike was laid. From now on, the mod scene continues to work diligently on the basic structure, Valve is already interested and is helping with financial injections. CS 1.0 will be released on November 8th, 2000, and a purchase version will also be available in stores. As of Counter-Strike 1.6, the game is only available via Steam, followed by CS: Condition Zero and CS: Source. To this day, many gamers play the original Counter-Strike, which is kept alive by patches.

More information about Counter Strike History is available from HL Portal. If you are interested in the basis of CS: Source, the Source engine, we recommend the PCGH Special: Source engine with maximum image quality.

… 2000: With the Athlon, AMD has already been able to successfully squeeze Intel in the CPU market and even break through the gigahertz barrier for x86 processors first. But the sometimes high-priced CPUs that are popular with gamers did not help AMD to gain market share. So the Texans launched a low-cost offshoot called Duron. This processor, codenamed Spitfire, was based on the Athlon architecture but featured a slower 100MHz FSB and a smaller Level 2 cache of just 64K bytes. As with the Thunderbird Athlons, this is placed directly on the CPU die and runs at full processor clock – thanks to it, the Duron overtakes the Celeron competition from Intel. It often even catches up to Pentium 3 CPUs with the same clock speed. The OEM prices for the initially presented versions with 600, 650 and 700 MHz are 112, 154 and 192 US dollars and are therefore on par with the corresponding Celeron models, the electrical power consumption is slightly higher at 22.7 to 25.5 watts .

The first Duron with a Spitfire core still lacked Intel’s SSE extension – this was supplied by the Morgan Durons, which were also manufactured using 180nm technology but also achieved a higher clock rate thanks to the increased voltage. Thanks to low prices and strong performance, Duron processors are selling well and giving AMD increasing market share.

… 2001: The Pentium 4 is already on the market, but with its initially rather low clock frequencies, it has so far not been able to inspire anyone. On June 19th, Intel is relaunching the old P6 architecture – for the last time: in the form of the Pentium 3 with a Tualatin core. Manufactured using the modern 130-nanometer process and with the L2 cache doubled to 512 KiByte, it is a little faster per clock and overall significantly faster than its Coppermine predecessor, and it can even keep up with the Athlon. Although the Tualatin is mainly used in servers and (as the Mobile Pentium 3 M) in notebooks and only a few desktop chipsets can handle it, it is becoming the popular last upgrade option for many Socket 370 boards that are still using it 1.4 GHz speed up. In fan circles, the fastest expansion stage with 1.4 Ghz is also affectionately called “King”. However, the future belongs to the Pentium 4, at least for a few years: Intel will then replace it with the Core architecture – which will be more similar to the Pentium 3 again.