AMD touts faster mobile Athlon 4

AMD today releases the Mobile AMD Athlon 4 1500+, its fastest notebook chip to date. Buy a thousand of them and you'll be quoted a unit list price of $525 (but as always with AMD suggested prices, there's some room to gouge some discount).

You can catch AMD's press release here.

This will tell you that the new part is built at Fab 30 in Dresden, using 0.18micron copper process technology. And also that you can buy Presario laptops featuring the chip from Compaq's web sites. Also supplied is a wodge of spec for the Athlon 4 processor. But what you won't find is a reference to the 1500+'s clock speed.

For AMD is extending the PR rating to the Athlon 4 notebook family. In other words the 1500+ bit of the part number is meant to (but never explicitly stated) indicate an equivalence to the MHz rating a similar performing Intel chip.

AMD is trying to get the industry to accept something it calls the "True Performance Initiative" (TPI), a standard way of measuring real-life capability of CPUs. It has in marketing veep Patrick Moorehead, appointed someone to promote this self-proclaimed consumer advocacy to the masses, as well as to computer makers and retailers. A challenging job, indeed. ®