Allegations that Intel has used its muscle in the market to deter Taiwanese manufacturers from producing motherboards for AMD microprocessors were denied by both companies today. On the contrary, AMD has said that it is very pleased with the response of the Taiwanese mobo makers, with more partners coming on board quicker than it expected. The allegations re-surfaced on USENET towards the end of last week, with correspondents suggesting that companies including Gigabyte and GVC were not putting their shoulder into marketing AMD-ready motherboards. Back in August, Tom's Hardware Page had alleged undue pressure on the manufacturers, which Intel refuted at the time. An Intel representative repeated his company's stance this morning, saying that nothing had changed since then. Intel maintained an ethical stance in the marketplace. Rana Mainee, AMD's European research director, said: "We do not know of any outright pressure." Market perception as AMD rolled out its Athlon K7 products may have been that there was not enough motherboard support, but, Mainee said, his company was pleased with the way things were going. He said that all of AMD's original motherboard partners, including Gigabyte, had performed well, while newer partners, such as GVC had moved faster than expected to support the Athlon. Two or three other new partners had also exceeded AMD's expectations, he added. "On the whole, we've cleared this hurdle from a market perception point of view," he said. The motherboard manufacturers, he said, had a lot on their plate because of delays to Intel's i820 chipset. But they had also overcome these problems, he added. "The 820 has caused some motherboard people a fair amount of additional workload," he said. "Since launch, I've been very happy with support from all of our motherboard manufacturers," he added. However, although that may be the position, it has not placated a number of people in different geographies. Over at this site, a petition has been organised attempting to persuade mobo makers to more actively support AMD's Athlon processor. ® See also: i820 derailed as Intel goes Rambust