SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Turning up the heat in the microprocessor wars, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is sampling its fastest x86-based chips to date to key system manufacturers, according to sources.
AMD is shipping its 1.4- and 1.5-GHz family of Athlon processors, which will be officially introduced in June and July, respectively, sources said. The products represent the company's fastest processors to data. At present, AMD's fastest Athlon MPUs run at speeds up to 1.3-GHz.
Officials from AMD did not return press calls.
The new chips will compete in the desktop PC market against Intel Corp.'s Pentium III processors, and to some degree, the Pentium 4, analysts said.
But with its current and future Athlon chips, AMD continues to chip away and grab market share away from Intel, analysts said. In fact, AMD's Athlon processors continues to attack what has become a major--and problematic--gap between Intel's Pentium III and 4 product offerings, they said.
For some time, Intel has positioned its Pentium III for the mainstream desktop PC market, but the chip is only running at speeds up to 1-GHz.
The next step in the product offering is the Pentium 4, which is geared for the high-end PC or low-end workstation markets, analysts said. At present, this chip runs at speeds of 1.3-, 1.4-, 1.5, and 1.7-GHz, analysts said.
Intel is scrambling to move the Pentium 4 into the mainstream by implementing a series of price cuts on the processor line. But still, the product family is tied to Rambus Inc.'s RDRAM memory architecture.
Intel and third-party chip set vendors are expected to announce some new core-logic ICs later this year. This will enable the Pentium 4 to support less expensive SDRAM or double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAM, sources said.
In the meantime, Intel hopes to shore up its position with the introduction of its long-awaited Pentium III line based on a 0.13-micron process technology. Intel has begun sampling the so-called Tualatin family of chips to OEMs (see May 16 story).
