April 20, 1998, TechWeb News
Cyrix Aims to Undercut Intel, AMD Chips -- Will Ship M II
300 Chip Next Week
By Aaron Ricadela & Todd Wasserman
New York - Cyrix last week announced a processor it said is as fast as a
300MHz Pentium II but priced like Celeron, aiming to undercut Intel and play
a bigger role in the PC clone market.
The chip could be a boost for Cyrix, which has struggled to win mass
acceptance for its now-redubbed M2 chips, particularly in the retail channel.
Cyrix's new chip, the M II 300, which will ship next week, is a
300MHz-equivalent processor that will be priced at $180 in volume orders
of 1,000 units. The faster speed and lower price should enable Cyrix's PC
makers to position the chip against Intel's Pentium II in a richer $1,499
configuration or against Celeron in a $999 PC, said Stan Swearingen, senior
director of product marketing at National Semiconductor. Cyrix, Richardson,
Texas, is a subsidiary of Santa Clara, Calif.-based National Semiconductor.
Swearingen said better yields at National's IBM contract manufacturing plant
led Cyrix to release M II ahead of schedule. "We can go head-to-head with
Pentium II and crush them on feature sets. Or, we can position it against
Celeron and sell M II 300's 25 percent performance delta over that chip," he
said.
Intel is expected to charge manufacturers $150 for its 266MHz Celeron in
volume orders. But the Slot 1 motherboards that seat Celeron chips start at
about two times the price of the $50 to $60 Socket 7 motherboards M II
supports.
M II's price also undercuts the pricing of Advanced Micro Devices' K6
300MHz chip.
Tony Massimini, chief of technology at Semico Research, said attempts by
AMD and Cyrix to exploit perceived technical chinks in Intel's armor may be
nullified by Intel's positioning of Celeron. "They're not trying to sell you a
Chevy in the guise of a Cadillac," he said.
M II 300-based systems will begin appearing at retail stores in May, in PCs
from Pionex Technologies and its direct-mail sister company CyberMax
Computer, Swearingen said. Computer City will also feature the chip in its
WinGen brand, he said.
But the primary thrust of Cyrix's strategy appears to be convincing top-tier
PC vendors to use the redubbed M2 (6x86MX) chip at retail. Computer
City uses the M2 in WinGen machines, while Compaq Computer uses
Cyrix's less-expensive MediaGX chip in retail notebooks. Micro Center also
uses the MediaGX chip in its PowerSpec line.
Otherwise, Cyrix has been something of a no-show at retail. IBM briefly used
M2 in U.S. Aptiva desktop PCs last year.
According to Swearingen, Cyrix has hired consultants to help refine its retail
message, which the company hopes will create momentum and convince
top-tier vendors to use M II by summer. "You're using retail to get some
product credibility," he said.
According to Ahron Schachter, vice president and general manager at
DataVision, New York, Cyrix can only gain credibility with retail customers
through deals with top-tier vendors. "If Compaq or IBM or Sony use that
chip, customers will have confidence," Schachter said. "When a company is
not a brand, or does not have market awareness, it has to have Intel Inside to
give the system credence."
Cyrix plans to deliver a 333MHz M II at the end of May, and a 350MHz
version in the middle of Q3. Those processors will support a 100MHz bus.
Cyrix also will introduce at year's end a high-performance chip called MXi,
which integrates 3-D instructions and is aimed at the sub-$1,000 PC market,
said Steve Tobak, vice president of corporate marketing at National
Semiconductor. The chip, due in at speeds of 300MHz and faster, is part of
an initiative to drive the price of PCs using the MediaGX chip to $599 (with
monitor) by summer.
Earlier this month, National Semiconductor chief executive officer Brian Halla
said the company has assembled the pieces it needs to put a "PC on a chip"
by mid-1999.
Tobak, speaking at last month's CeBIT 98 show in Hannover, Germany, said
the initiative will incorporate analog processing, such as input from a mouse or
joystick, onto the CPU, along with modem and graphics processing.
Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media Inc. |
