Both Intel and AMD lock horns with their fastest processors yet. AMD merely cranks up its successful 'Palomino' design, while Intel unveils its much-anticipated 'Northwood' brain-child.

Who will win? Performance enthusiasts, certainly. Only the CPU Scorecard knows for sure...

AMD's Performance Rating (PR) system is brought to their mobile computing line. Details of their True Performance Initiative (TPI), explaining the rationale behind it, still forthcoming.

After recently ratcheting up its desktop Duron, AMD pumps up its mobile cousin, matching (and besting) Intel's comparable Celeron offering.

CeBIT is also the launch pad for AMD's latest unveiling of their top-speed desktop Athlon XP, server Athlon MP, and mobile Athlon 4 processors.

AMD brings their successful XP brand to notebooks, as well.

'Thoroughbred' makes its debut. Smaller, cooler & faster than its sire, though still back by a length from Intel's champ.

The new AMD Athlon™ MP processor 2100+ is designed to provide commercial users with stability and reliability for dual processor server and workstation platforms.

AMD speeds up notebooks for less, yet again.

Finally breaking the 2GHz clockspeed target, AMD comes closer to Intel's top performer.

AMD increases its MP processor speed another notch while shrinking its die size to match the latest XP's.

Continuing a dangerous trend of announcing new Athlons with "limited" availability, AMD shows that-- in theory-- their fastest beats Intel's.  Don't look for them before the end of November (*sigh*...)

After Steve Jobs' unveiling of the new, jaw-dropping iMac at the beginning of the year, a reported 150 000 have been pre-ordered already. Today they are shipping, pleasing lamp collectors world-wide.

Meanwhile, Apple also  finally breaks the gigaHertz barrier, claiming  a 72% performance advantage over a 2 GHz Pentium 4 (two against one, of course).

As the saying goes at Apple: "If you can't beat'em, dual'em"

Intel rings in their new year with a faster, next-gen (Pentium-III) Celeron.

Funny, with Pentium 4 prices improving, no one's really noticed.

Intel pumps up its servers with a new 'Tualatin'.

Intel's new chip onslaught continues, flooding the mobile market while AMD merely improves its trusty Duron.

Keeping the pressure on AMD's upcoming 'Hammer' , Intel's new "Prestonia" is now officially unveiled, after shipping since January. Just call it a hyper-threaded 'Northwood' for dual workstations.

Northwood goes on the road, with Deeper Sleep mode, Enhanced  SpeedStep, and an improved mobile chipset.

Intel unveils their upgraded Xeon processor for servers capable of running in 4-way configurations and up.

Shrinking the size, but increasing the speed, Intel's newest, fastest Pentium 4 just edges past AMD's fastest Athlon XP.

New, ultra-low power processors make fans optional in sub-notebooks and tablet PC's.

Dual-processor servers and workstations can now have a Xeon of their own, matching Intel's fastest desktop CPU.

Intel's mobile Pentium 4 line is fleshed out, as well.

A bus boost to 533MHz breaths new life into Intel's flagship.

Intel's oldest processors are new again, adding former Pentium 4's that couldn't quite make the cut. 

Boosted again in less than a month, Intel's enhances its aggressive competition in the budget PC market.

Intel ships the world's first 2 GigaHertz microprocessor for mobile PCs.

Determined to keep AMD in second place, Intel punches out still faster P4's, together with new RDRAM.

Ahead of schedule, Intel unleashes its fastest dualies yet.

Intel issues an avalanche of mobile CPU's spanning the entire range of its product line, just in time for Christmas.

Intel delivers the first 3 GHz desktop CPU and unveils Hyper-Threading as their new virtual multiprocessor performance booster.