AMD's Palomino processors will launch on 9 October.

Now called the Athlon XP, it will come in 4 speeds - the XP 1500 plus, XP 1600 plus, XP 1700 plus and XP 1800 plus.

The clock speeds of the chips are:

• XP 1500 - 1.33GHz
  
• XP 1600 - 1.4GHz
  
• XP 1700 - 1.47GHz
  
• XP 1800 - 1.53GHz
  

AMD has given the Palominos their 1500 plus etc. names, and not used the clock speeds of the processors, to move away from direct comparisons with Intel processor speeds. Or to be more precise, it's given them names to suggest faster clock speeds than they've got, based on their rule of thumb that AMD processors match or beat the performance of Intel processors which are 300MHz faster.

For example, AMD says an XP 1800 plus, which runs at 1.53GHz, would perform as well as a 1.83GHz Intel chip - hence, that's why it's called an 1800 plus.

To get this idea across, the Athlon XPs will be sold using the marketing jargon - quantispeed technology. System builders have been warned not to mention the actual clock speeds of the chips, but to talk of quantispeed processors, to suggest they're turbocharged. ®

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