Duron, the processor that Chimpzilla's marketing division forgot, is now out in 750MHz guise, priced at $181 each in 1,000 unit quantities. Despite spending all its marketing dosh on Athlon, little Duron continues to make steady progress and is already a favourite with hardware sites. More than 20 computer manufacturers worldwide are offering 750MHz Duron systems for sale today, says AMD.

Duron's performance - about 10-15 per cent below that of an Athlon of the same speed - has also made it a firm favourite with folks looking to build systems at home.

Rival Intel's fastest Celeron is currently a 700MHz part priced at $138 in 1K quantities. Faster Celerons are due any day now.

AMD's reticence to promote Duron hard shows the company is keen to avoid the marketing mistakes Intel made. In a bid to rescue Celeron's tarnished reputation, Chipzilla spent money hand over fist resulting in Celeron taking sales away from higher-margin Pentium II and III processors.

Intel could afford to take the hit on the bottom line, but AMD's wallet is nowhere near as capacious. ®

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