AMD Ships Athlon 650MHz

AMD has long played the role of the underdog to Intel's dominance in the mainstream CPU market. Time and again, AMD's processors would not only fall behind Intel's in terms of performance, but they'd be racked with compatibility problems, low yields and sub par MHz ratings. Part of that, at least, ends today.

This morning AMD officially announced its 650MHz version of the Athlon, or K7, processor. The announcement is a milestone for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company for a couple of reasons. First, this is the first time AMD has produced a processor technically superior to a comparative CPU from Intel – on paper at least. At 128kb, the Athlon has four times the amount of L1 cache of the Intel Pentium III. Its bus, based on Compac's Alpha EV6 architecture, runs at 200MHz – twice that of Intel's BX bus speed. The current Athlons ship with 512kb of L2 cache but can support up to 8MB of cache – the Pentium III tops out at 512kb.

Second, the announcement of the 650MHz version of the Athlon marks the first time AMD has beaten Intel in the coveted megahertz race. Intel's Pentium III processors are currently limited to 600MHz. Oh, Intel will have a 650MHz Pentium III soon enough, but the release of the 650MHz Athlon gives AMD the right to place a feather in its cap - for the time being.

In anticipation of this announcement, a number of companies have pledged support for the Athlon's architecture including 3dfx, Microsoft, nVidia, Matrox, Ali and others. Systems integrators Nexar PC, Compaq and Systemax have also started shipping computers powered by the Athlon.

So is it clear sailing for AMD? Don't break out the champagne just yet. The Athlon is an untested and unproven technology, and that scares OEM manufacturers and systems integrators - arguably the most important market segment for the likes of AMD and Intel. And at US$849 for the Athlon 650 in bulk, many feel that AMD needs to sweeten the deal with a lower price. The company has also had a long history of incompatibility problems with its core logic chipsets and low yields at its manufacturing plants, a major reason for the high prices.

However, AMD shouldn't be counted out just yet. The company knows that the Athlon is its make or break product, and has undoubtedly learned from the mistakes of its past. As you read this, AMD is putting the finishing touches on a major fabrication plant in Dresden, Germany to insure that the Athlon doesn't fall victim to the yield problems of the K6-2 and K6-3 before it. The company also plays an active role with game developers, helping them learn and implement the 3DNow! enhancements designed to take advantage of AMD's processors, improving gameplay speed.

The bottom line is that the Athlon is currently the fastest mainstream processor money can buy. And if AMD squares away its production and compatibility problems, then, for once, Intel will surely have a force to reckon with.

Athlon-powered computers are available now from a number of systems integrators. You'll be able to buy the processor by itself later on this year, once motherboard support picks up. For more on AMD's next generation processor, be sure to check out our Athlon feature, Serious Competition at Last.