While Intel claimed the clock speed title at the end of the previous millennium, AMD catches up quickly at the start of this one with their official announcement of an Athlon at 800MHz.

No sooner had Intel & IBM announced their upcoming GHz processor designs, when AMD sped back with an actual demonstration of a 1.1GHz Athlon without any special cooling! Not available to lowly computer users yet, though. Expect to see them in desktop models by the end of the year...*sigh*

Meanwhile, the race to actually ship a production version of a GHz CPU is still underway! There's still time, Intel. Show us more than just fancy slides.

Putting their processors where their promises have been, AMD unveils the next step-up in the Athlon line. Compaq and others are already shipping with the new speedster. See where it scores here.

Intel started it; AMD followed by deeply slashing processor prices up to 40%, both preparing for faster chip introductions in March.

After hearing that Intel planned to announce their first 1GHz Pentium-III on Wednesday, AMD has apparently decided to work all weekend and unveil their 1GHz Athlon on Monday. Which one first makes it into an actual computer is anyone's guess.

No matter who leads, we'll clock their speeds.

You predicted it. AMD's done it! The 1GHz barrier is officially broken, with systems available now from Compaq and Gateway. See where the new Athlon scores...

Two new Intel Celerons based on the Coppermine core will be arriving at 566 and 600MHz. AMD will soon follow with the K6-2+ for notebooks and eventually, Spitfire.

AMD has started shipping samples of their up-coming Thunderbird processor: copper-based Athlons built with an integrated L2 cache. No speed details yet, but expect to see them in volume by this fall.

In a curious denouncement of their own product, AMD has left the introduction of their newest mobile processor to Hewlett Packard. Check here for the specs and here for the score on the new K6-2+.

Well, finally. In a bid to maintain pressure on Intel's notebook market share, AMD introduced its two Sharptooth derivatives at speeds up to 500MHz. Not available for desktop systems, these processors will implement PowerNow! battery-saving technology, similar to Intel's SpeedStep.

Unfortunately, PowerNow! is not available *ahem* now. AMD needs more time to encourage its motherboard partners to provide PowerNow!-enabled BIOS's in their supporting products. The new chips are ready now. PowerNow! capability is not expected until "later this year".

Despite what is usually a slower CPU demand season--the traditionally slack prelude to the back-to-school and Christmas quarters--AMD announced that all available Athlon and K6-2 processors are spoken for until June, due to a manufacturing capacity deficit. Intel's shortage problems continue to be evidenced by a two-month delay in 633- and 677-MHz Celerons that had been expected next week.

Until now, AMD has been benefiting from processor shortages that have been plaguing Intel since their introduction of the Coppermine last fall. Now both are affected, though it certainly has not hurt the profitability of either Intel or AMD. And no slowdown in demand is in sight. If you are in the market for a computer, better act soon or wait until the fall, when new chips and increased production should start to catch up. Price cuts are likely to wither for the next few months.

No, it's not a new kitchen counter-top surface. It's a baby Athlon with an on-die 128kB L2 cache, formerly code-named 'Spitfire'. AMD's marketing team comes up with another winner for their new line of budget processors, expected in June.

At least it's a better name than 'Spit-on'...

Once tapped with the job of launching Athlon into the multi-processor server market, HotRail has jumped ship into the communications IC market. Mind you, AMD is having enough to do keeping up with consumer PC demand, let alone the server market.

Taking the setback in stride, AMD is now pushing its own Lightning Data Transfer (LTD) bus as a standard replacement for PCI, AGP, and every other dedicated high-bandwidth bus in your computer. They have already signed up 40 other hardware companies in partnership. Except for Intel, we would imagine.

Although Athlon users may be looking forward to Thunderbird and its 256kB integrated L2 cache, upgrading will not be easy. All Athlon motherboards use Slot-A connectors and chipsets, owing to the current off-die L2 packaging. Next generation Thunderbirds will eventually find a home in Socket-A motherboards only. Although they will be initially available in a Slot-A version, only Compaq,  Gateway, and a select few other manufacturers will get them. Slot-A Thunderbirds will not be available to us common folk.

Don't throw out your Athlon motherboards yet. Slocket converters should arrive soon after Thunderbird is introduced in June.

As early as June 5, AMD is expected to unveil 10 new processors in its largest launch ever.

Get your Duron & Thunderbird previews here and here.

Amid Gateway's announcement that they will be doubling their AMD inventory, the University of Kentucky's KLAT2 (Kentucky Linux Athlon Testbed 2) project is set to rocket Athlon to even greater success. Their new 64-processor Beowulf cluster plans to showcase how Athlon's 3DNow! technology can achieve supercomputer performance at an averagecomputer price.

If you count all the Slot-A/Socket-A configurations of their new Athlon update, plus the first three Duron speeds, you get 15 total processors in AMD's biggest chip hatch yet. Check out where the Thunderbird ranks.

Seeing the future in less dictatorial operating systems, both Intel & AMD have respectively partnered with Hewlett-Packard and Lineo to provide Linux development tools for Itanium and embedded-chip internet appliances, again respectively.

Although AMD's Duron was reported to be shipping along with their latest Thunderbirds, the official announcement was delayed to upstage Intel's unveiling of their new notebook Pentium-III's and Celerons. So far, the Duron blows away existing Celerons and takes the lead on price and performance in the budget desktop market.

--Over to you, Intel...?

Trying once again to upstage Intel's new Celeron and mobile chip announcements, AMD unveils two new additions to its K6-2+ notebook line. The big deal this time around is not speed (reaching only 550MHz) but PowerNow!, a BIOS-controlled speed- and voltage-stepping process that can stretch notebook battery life. Although it was announced when AMD's K6-2+ and K6-III+ chips were first introduced, the BIOS support for PowerNow! was not in place from major manufacturers (such as Hewlett-Packard) until today.

PowerNow! approaches the sophistication of Transmeta's LongRun firmware and is a far cry from Intel's SpeedStep technology, which merely switches down the processor when unplugged from the wall. Too bad K6-2+ 's top speed is only 550MHz, compared to Intel's fastest mobile Pentium-III at 750MHz.

Some of Gateway's first 1GHz Thunderbird computers are suffering frequent 'lock-ups', most likely due to motherboard or power supply problems. Until the issues are worked out, Gateway is offering to replace the Thunderbirds in troubled machines with standard Athlon processors.

Not exactly a fair trade, considering the 1GHz Athlon is about 10% slower than the Thunderbird version. Faster than a dead stop, however.

Though mostly good intentions and PR puff at the moment, AMD is apparently planning to have their 1GHz 'Corvette' Athlons in notebooks by Q1 2001. Low-power Durons will be available for mobile managers by the end of this year.

Intel, on the other hand, appears not to have any GHz notebook chips in its roadmap until Q2 next year.

AMD's answer to Intel's 64-bit Itanium is said to be available now in engineering samples, with actual product shipping in August.

With Intel's recent announcement that Itanium will be late (again), AMD looks to be ready with some Intel-coloured mops.

Whether due to fumbling OEMs, missed design deadlines, or simply a shortage of supply, don't expect to see many Duron systems in time for the back-to-school buying rush.

That's OK. They should still be faster than any Celeron systems by the time Christmas rolls around.

Replacing chip sets with an integrated AGP-IDE-sound-graphics-memory controller all-in-one, Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. hopes to take the lead in supporting lower-cost AMD-inside solutions during at least the next 12 months.

While not quite fulfilling the rumour that AMD's new 64-bit Itanium-killer is actually sampling, details of Sledgehammer's x86-64 architecture are now available. Scheduled for release at the end of 2001, Sledgehammer plans to slam into the server market by extending the current 32-bit x86 instruction set into the 64-bit arena, ensuring backward-compatibility. Intel's approach, on the other hand, is the development of a new 64-bit instruction set, with accompanying software to run old 32-bit code. AMD is stressing compatibility; Intel, performance. We look forward to seeing who wins.

For a more detailed analysis, visit AnandTech.

Emulating their rival Intel in more ways than ever, AMD announced they are shipping their next speed grade of Athlons at 1.1GHz--but you can't buy one yet. The official launch is August 28. Unlike Intel, however, AMD did slash prices across the board to celebrate the first birthday of their original Athlon.

See our preview score.

Expected to swap patents including AMD's Lightning Data Transport (LDT) technology, Intel's two biggest processor rivals look set to combine some of their forces against the giant. Details of the partnership are sketchy, but expected soon.

Rubbing more salt in Intel's recent wounds, AMD delivers Durons at 750MHz, not only beating Celeron in clock speed, but stomping all over its performance, too. See where it ranks.

AMD's latest, fastest chips ever are finally here. See all the speeds and read all the reviews.

AMD's top-of-the-line Athlons at 1GHz, 1.13GHz (new), and 1.2GHz are now boosted with a 266MHz frontside bus and DDR.

Shades of Intel: actual working 760 motherboards may not be available until next year...

What was once planned as a Xeon competitor, AMD's cache-boosted Mustang has now been pulled from development for the server market. Next-generation Athlon and Duron designs (Palomino and Morgan, respectively) are still on the map, however.