AMD Rolls 1GHz MPU Today New Athlons and Pentiums arrive ahead of schedule BY ARIK HESSELDAHL Could it be any closer? In a dramatic climax to the gigahertz race, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) late Friday confirmed that today it will begin _ shipping 1GHz Athlon micro- | processors in systems from Com- paq Computer Corp. and Gate- way Inc. The news comes just days after reports indicated that Intel Corp. this month was planning to rush into production a 1GHz Pentium III Coppermine microprocessor, which will ship in systems from three PC OEMs: IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Computer Corp. People familiar with Intel’s plans said the 1GHz Pentium III announcement could come as early as Wednesday. [Continued on page 54]S54 Evecrronic News AMD Puts the GHz on Intel {Continued from page 1) ‘AMD had been rumored for some time to have a 1GHz Athlon wait- ing in the wings, ready for release when necessary. Early Friday, AMD had merely said it would unveil the chip in cooperation with a PC OEM partner sometime in March, following reports about Intel’s moves with HP, Dell and IBM. All that changed by late Fri- day afternoon, setting up a photo- finish in which the company that sent its press release to the wire services first got to claim victory. “Both companies have pulled out all the stops,” said Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mer- cury Research, Scottsdale, Ariz. According to AMD docu- ments, the 1GHz Athlon will sell for $1,299. AMD also will roll out Athlon microprocessors at speeds of 900MHz and 950MHz, priced at $899 and $999, respectively. Industry analysts seemed sur- prised by Intel’s sudden move to push systems out ahead of the pre- viously announced product sched- ule, suggesting that the company may have kicked into panicmode after hearing that AMD had pushed its product release sched- ule ahead of its own plans. Intel’s most recent publiccom- ments about the matter had put a 1GHz Pentium III Coppermine processor on the roadmap for the second half of the year, and only after releases of microprocessors running at 866MHz and 933MHz. AMD’s roadmap had a 1GHz Athlon hitting the streets around the same time of Intel's competing . If one were to have taken their publicly stated plans seri- ously, neither company was expected to break the gigahertz tape until about September. Industry observers have taken note of the posturing between the companies in recent months, as both have slashed prices on existing product lines, and both exhibited parts at industry gatherings run- ning at speeds higher that 1GHz. AMD demonstrated a 1.1GHz Athlon in January, while Intel a Willamette sor running at 1.5GHz weekslater. Yet the question facing cus- tomers of both chipmakers is one of volume. How many of these parts can they actually produce? The answer seems to be, “Not many.” For Intel, releasing these systems with three PC vendors may not amount to actual volume production, as it is traditionally considered. Moreover, as Intel has traditionally announced new prod- ucts in speed-boost increments of 66MHz at a time, the company has yet to announce parts in the 866MHz and 933MHz slots. “AMD can certainly announce agigahertz part anytime Intel can,” said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group, Mountain View, Calif. “Butif you try and order a system with either part right away, you'll probably find that it’s backordered.” From Intel’s point of view, the company faces a dual dilemma. From the marketing and public relations standpoint, it does not wish to lose the race to volume- produced gigahertz. sors to AMD. But it also does not want a repeat of the supply and delivery problems it had with the 800MHz Pentium III Coppermine, from which it is just now recover- ing by some accounts. | “It comes down to managing the expectations of their cus- tomers,” said Keith Diefendorff, analyst with Cahners MicroDe- sign Resources and editor-in-chief of Microprocessor Report. By bringing out the new sys- tems at a premium price with only three major OEMs, Intel is trying to control the demand, Diefendorrf said. “I'm sure they can produce some of these parts, but the ques- tion is, how many can they produce at a reasonable cost?” he said. McCarron of Mercury Research agreed. “A lotof this depends on where the center of their yield curve isand how long Intel has been planning for this,” he said. “Certainly when you go back to the 800MHz prod- uct, it was certainly announced before they were ready to supply the market, but I’m not sure this is the case now.” ‘Nathan Brookwood, pri pal of Insight 64, Saratoga, Calif. said that the systems containing | these parts will have to carry a | hefty price tag.