Athlon XP PC ads dribble in

Just a smattering of advertising for AMD's newly launched Athlon XP processors can be found in the main papers today. Only Time Computers and Mesh Computers are displaying offers on the new chips.

Of the two, Time is the only one daring to make a real foray into the controversial "QuantiSpeed" marketing pitch. Mesh preferred to keep a lower profile of that, running instead with an "express, explore, experience..." header.

Time, with a bold "The new world champion" headline offers an Athlon XP 1500+ as its main special. For £1,099, customers get 512MB DDR RAM, an 80GB disk drive, 64MB nVidia GeForce 2, 17-inch monitor and a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. The ad also features a small graph, only attributed to "Relative Sysmark performance" showing both 1500+ and 1700+ Athlon XPs streaking ahead of a 1.8GHz Intel P4.

Mesh's offer is for a top of the line 1800+ XP and comes in at £1,173.83 with 512MB DDR RAM, a 60GB drive, 64MB nVidia GeForce 2, 19-inch monitor and CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo. Both company's machines ship with Windows XP.

And is Fujitsu-Siemens taking advantage of the confusion surrounding AMD's model numbering? Its ad for the day has the main headline of "1.8GHz" in large bold print. Underneath, it has offers for "Euroline 1.80GHz SD CDRW" and "Euroline 1.40GHz SD CDRW" machines. Only the body print and an Intel logo banged away on the side alerts readers that the offers are for Intel, not AMD.

PC World's daily ad ignores desktops completely and focuses on a variety of laptop machines.

In sideline news, AMD seemingly needs to invest in some additional processors. It's Web site today greets you with: "Due to the incredible demand for information concerning the exciting, new AMD Athlon(tm) XP processor, our servers are unable to keep up with the unprecedented traffic visiting AMD.com. We are currently doing everything in our power to handle the overwhelming amount of requests. Please check back later. Thank you for your patience." ®

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