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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kevin K. Spurway who wrote (93611)	2/16/2000 4:48:00 PM
From: DRBES	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1571785

I could be wrong but I think that this news item is pretty heavy stuff: dailynews.yahoo.com Wednesday February 16 04:31 PM EST AMD crashes Intel's desert chip-fest By John G. Spooner, ZDNet News Never has Palm Springs seen so much speed, gigahertz-wise: AMD shows off 1.1GHz Athlons across town from Intel's own fast-chip bash. PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. brought its own ultra-gigahertz demo to this desert resort here this week. AMD, which has crashed Intel's developer forum, going on simultaneously across town, brought along a pair of future Athlon chips running at 1,100MHz or 1.1GHz each. The demos were made at room temperature. • Intel calls for e-business standard • AMD busts out 850MHz Athlon • AMD cuts Athlon prices up to 18 percent • AMD readies faster Athlons "That speaks to where Dresden (AMD's newest processor manufacturing plant in Germany) is at," said Mark Bode, division marketing manager for AMD's Athlon product marketing group. "It's there when we want to go with it." AMD will begin producing significant quantities of chips from Dresden in the second quarter." AMD (NYSE: AMD - news) has said it will deliver 1GHz and faster Athlon chips in the second half of this year. Officially, the company is shooting for the fourth quarter, but it is likely AMD will try to move up that date, considering that Intel (Nasdaq: INTC is announcing Tuesday that it will be shipping a 1GHz Pentium III chip in volume in the third quarter. Intel also demonstrated on Tuesday its forthcoming Willamette chip running at 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz. Consumer angle: Faster PCs sooner For consumers, the rivalry means faster chips will be available in PCs more quickly. AMD is also making investments in developing new chip-set technologies for the Athlon, which will increase performance via faster bus speeds. The chips used in AMD's demo are based on the company's forthcoming Thunderbird processor core, which will include integrated cache and, later, copper interconnects. Thunderbird is due in the second half of the year. Its on-die cache should yield a performance improvement of up to 10 percent, according to AMD officials. Thunderbird will also support new packaging, called Socket A. The integrated cache will negate the need for AMD's cartridge-like Slot A processor package, which includes a board for the Athlon's 512KB external cache right now. Marketing Thunderbird Less packaging means AMD will be able to reduce the price of each socketed Athlon by a few dollars. At the same time it offers a more efficient means for removing heat from the chip. In terms of branding, AMD might market the Thunderbird chips under the Athlon Professional name. The company is developing a new chip set for use with the Thunderbird processors. The most important feature of the new chip set, called the AMD 760, is that it will boost the EV6 bus speed from 200MHz to 266MHz. The 760, due in the second half, will also support a quadruple-speed accelerated graphics port, as well as double data rate (DDR) synchronous dynamic RAM at 200MHz and 266MHz. VIA Technologies will also release a new chip set for Athlon on Socket A. Called the VIA KZ-133, the chip set will support quadruple-speed AGP and 133MHz SDRAM, otherwise known as PC133 memory. For sub-$1,000 PCs: Spitfire Also in the second quarter, AMD will introduce Spitfire, an Athlon core designed for use in sub-$1,000 PCs. "We're trying to design parts that fit into price points," Bode said. AMD is working to deliver Spitfire-based chips for PCs priced at $999, $799 and $599. The processors will also utilize the Socket A package and integrated cache but will receive less cache than Thunderbird. Spitfire will not be branded as an Athlon. It will, instead, receive a new name. AMD says it is in the process of narrowing down a final list of names for the chip. AMD's third-quarter chip plans will let Mustang, a third Athlon processor core, out of its corral. Mustang will offer up to 2MB of integrated cache for workstation and server applications and mobile features for use in notebook PCs. Mustang will likely be sold under the Athlon Professional brand name. For Mustang, AMD will release a new chip set, the AMD 770, which will support two-way processing and also offer a 266MHz bus and support for 266MHz DDR. Last week, AMD began shipping an 850MHz Athlon chip. See this story in context on ZDNN's Page One Section. Regards, DARBES P.S. It would appear that Jerry has finally learned how to speak softly and carry an atomic cannon.