AMD takes chips to Xtremes

Athlon XP 'faster and cheaper than the Pentium 4'

AMD claims that its latest Athlon chips will woo business customers away from rival Intel with the promise of lower-cost computing.

The US chipmaker has said that the new Athlon processors, called XP for "eXtreme Performance", will be cheaper and faster than Intel's Pentium 4.

Many PC manufacturers have committed to releasing systems based on Athlon XP chips. Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu, Siemens, Compaq, NEC and Time have announced desktop systems based on all four models of the new chip.

AMD is breaking convention by not classifying its chip by clock speed. Instead, the four chips in the range have been assigned model numbers: the 1500+ running at 1.33GHz, the 1600+ at 1.4GHz, the 1700+ at 1.47GHz and the top-end 1800+ running at 1.533GHz.

Intel's Pentium 4 has a top clock speed of 2GHz, but AMD denies claims that the name change is an attempt to cover up the speed disparity.

"We are being completely open and honest as to what the processor is, and what it has in it. We are not trying to hide the clock speed of the Athlon XP," said Robert Stead, director of marketing for AMD Europe, adding that the measurement on its own is not a true reflection of its performance.

"The best comparisons to draw are: 'how fast is your 56K modem?' or 'how big is your 17-inch monitor'," he explained. "The actual physical measurement is somewhat different, but what you have is still a 56K modem or a 17-inch monitor, even though it is not technically accurate."

But Intel is not convinced by AMD's performance claims or benchmark figures, and describes its Pentium 4 as the fastest desktop chip available.

"It's the world's fastest performing processor, while the Netburst micro-architecture on which the chip is based delivers a platform that can be scaled to reach upwards of 10GHz performance," said Intel spokesman Graham Palmer.

"Intel does accept that MHz/GHz is not the only measure of performance," he added. "There is also instructions per clock cycle. But we not only have the highest frequency, but also an architecture to support the chip's performance."

Microsoft is backing the Athlon XP, announcing that Windows XP, its operating system due for release on 25 October, has been optimised for use on systems with the Athlon processor.