AMD introduced its 700MHz Athlon processor today, as expected, and quietly trashed the big surprise Chipzilla was hoping for with the introduction of its Coppermine PIII chips by cutting prices on others in the range. Our information is that the 750MHz Athlon will now be introduced in late November. And AMD scored a further feather in its anti-Intel cap, as chipset company SiS has just announced it will support Athlon processors too. The top of the range Pentium III killer, the 700MHz Athlon, costs $666 in quantity. The 650MHz part now costs $510, the 600MHz part $406, the 550MHz Athlon $269 and the 500MHz Athlon price remains the same. AMD is expected to follow its scaleability curve soon with an 800MHz processor, coming very soon. Most hardware sites that have compared the Athlon processor with the new Cu-mine intros give AMD's chip the edge on floating point performance, despite Intel's higher (and probably overclocked) 733MHz part. Motherboard support is also coming onstream. The Asus motherboard is now selling in Japan and other third-party products are expected shortly. ® Related story Copper Athlon hits 900MHz, AMD cranks 1GHz-plus production