Athlon MP/XP Confusion: Same Chip?

Did you find it odd that the specs for the new AMD Athlon XP and MP processors were nearly identical? So did the folks over at The Inquirer. In fact, it turns out that some curious tecchies went ahead and slapped the Athlon XP chips into Tyan dualie motherboards and, lo and behold, they worked just like the MP multiprocessing chips. Apparently some of the first XP chips out of the chute were unlocked for symmetric multiprocessing just like their more expensive MP siblings. If you picked up a few of the first Athlon XPs, you may have gotten a multiprocessing bonus (you would have had to buy two, of course). Check out the whole story at the Inq .