AMD speeds past Intel to 1GHz landmark

AMD has started to ship its 1GHz Athlon processors and unveiled Compaq and Gateway as its first customers.

Richard Baker, North European marketing manager of AMD, said being the first to break the 1GHz barrier - ahead of arch-rival Intel - is a psychological boost for the smaller chipmaker, but also stressed other aspects of the processor's launch are just as encouraging. "We've matured," he said.

In recent years, Intel has had the edge over its competitor, which had a track record of poor yields. However, it's been Intel which has recently failed to provide products as quickly as some PC OEMs would like.

Dell, which remains one of the few major PC producers to shun AMD processors, recently blamed poor quarterly results on an "uneven" supply of Pentium IIIs from Intel. AMD said it is still knocking on the direct vendor's door.

Clive Longbottom, strategy analyst at Strategy Partners, praised the way AMD has turned around its business, and dismissed claims users don't want such power on their desktops. He said: "We're getting to the point where we will start to need shielding around processors this powerful, but people will want the latest and greatest, even if it's just to run Microsoft Office."

Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight64, called the AMD 1GHz processor "an important milestone" and said it will give software developers the freedom to design more sophisticated products.

Although Intel has given public demonstrations of its 1GHz offering - and even run it in test systems from Dell, HP and IBM - it said the introduction of its model will happen "shortly".

However, AMD declined to say when it might try to launch an assault on Intel's position in the lucrative workstation and server markets, where the chip giant's main competitors are Sun (with UltraSPARC) and the Compaq-owned Alpha design.

"We're one tenth of the size of Intel, and we've never taken a scattergun approach,"
AMD's Baker added.