AMD Athlon breaks through 2GHz mark

AMD launched its fastest ever processors today, the Athlon XP processor 2400+ and 2600+, claiming their application performance outshone anything arch-rival Intel had to offer.

The newly minted Athlon XP 2400+ and Athlon XP 2600+ run at 2.0GHz and 2.133GHz respectively, though AMD says judging processor performance on speed alone, what it describes as the 'Megahurtz myth', can be misleading.

In common with other Athlon XP processors, the XP 2600+ and 2400+ are both made using 0.13 micron copper process technology and support a 266MHz front-side bus.

Athlon XP 2600+ and 2400+ processors feature QuantiSpeed architecture, 384KB of on-chip, full-speed cache, and support for AMD's 3DNow! Professional instructions for enhanced multimedia capabilities. AMD claims it technology offers performance advantages over Intel on a broad array of real-world applications, including digital media, office productivity and 3D gaming.

AMD Athlon XP processors 2600+ and 2400+ are priced at $297 and $193, respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities. The chip manufacturer has begun shipping chip samples to PC vendors worldwide, with systems expected to be available in September.

Intel, never one to take such challenges lightly, is reportedly poised to strike back with the launch a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 processor next Monday.

We're not sure of the pricing on these chips yet, but we expect the introduction of faster chips from both AMD and Intel to result in cheaper prices for earlier processors. ®

External Links

Review of the XP 2600 by Tom's Hardware
Links to other reviews