AMD keeps mum over 1.7Ghz Athlon

AMD is remaining tight-lipped about its plans to develop a 1.7Ghz Athlon processor for delivery in the second half of 2001, despite leaked details to an online news service.

The company refused to confirm or deny the claims, but did admit that a 1.7Ghz Athlon processor could not be ruled out in the future and that the performance of such a processor would be between eight and 10 per cent better that its predecessor.

But AMD would not reveal when it hoped to launch a 1.7Ghz Athlon on the market, maintaining that officially the company does not comment on future products.

The fastest Athlon currently on the market is the 1.2Ghz, and a leap straight to a 1.7Ghz seems unlikely. The company boasts that even its 1.2Ghz Athlon performs better than its rival Intel's 1.5Ghz Pentium 4.

"I'm not quite sure where they got the idea that we were doing it next year," said Richard Black, AMD's north European marketing manager. "We will do a 1.7Ghz at some time in the future. When we do, it will work and will be at a specification for our customers to use."

AMD did confirm that the next Athlon release would be either a 1.3Ghz or a 1.333Ghz processor depending on whether 200Mhz or 266Mhz front-side bus support is used. It is assumed that AMD will deliver this early next year.

Researcher IDC believes that users could benefit from the potential performance increases in a 1.7Ghz processor but doesn't expect AMD to deliver it for some time due to current limitations.

Andy Brown, a senior research analyst at IDC, said: "At the moment I think it's limited to 1.2Ghz. AMD is highly dependant on third-party chipset manufacturers."

AMD is reported to be winning the chip war with Intel, despite the recent release of the Pentium 4. Many analysts believe that it is more to do with the significantly lower cost of the AMD chips.