Advanced Micro Devices, Intel's scrappy competitor in the PC processor business, finally has a chip it can crow about -- the Athlon -- a product that will eventually take AMD into the more profitable, higher end of the market.
On Monday, AMD is to announce that two top PC makers will ship the chip in PCs later this month. AMD will also tout some key performance data showing the Athlon is faster than the rival Pentium III from Intel.
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AMD will say that International Business Machines and Compaq Computer will be shipping PCs based on the chip later this month, with other big system makers expected later. AMD expects the computer system prices to range from US$1,499 to $2,699.
The September issue of PC World will report that the 600 megahertz Athlon is on average 9 percent faster than the 600 megahertz Pentium III from Intel. In graphics tests, the Athlon was 21 percent faster running three-dimensional modeling software.
"This is clearly a high-end chip," said Laurianne McLaughlin, senior associate editor, news, at PC World. "It clearly poses real competition to Intel at the high end. It will be very attractive to power desktop users."
Sunnyvale, California-based AMD will also announce an even faster Athlon, a 650 megahertz version, surpassing Intel's fastest Pentium III.
AMD named the new chip line the Athlon to break away from the association with the family of slower, cheaper processors. The name Athlon is also a Greek root in the word decathlon meaning contest and is meant to denote strength, power, and speed, AMD said.
With the Athlon, which had been code-named the K7, AMD now has a chip to compete with Intel at the high end of the computer market, and a product that Wall Street is banking on to return the company to profitability, industry analysts say.
