A veil of silence has descended over whether or not Intel has put pressure on Gigabyte and Asustek to slow down on their K7 motherboard activities. One rumour -- and we stress this is only one of the rumours -- is that Intel asked the Taiwanese firms to slow down on developing solutions for the up-and-coming Athlon. Another rumour goes along the lines that Gigabyte and Asus bowed to Intel's pressure. But the third rumour is that both companies turned round to Intel and gave Chipzilla the Sanders Salute. AMD said today it couldn't comment. Intel was unavailable for comment. Gigabyte and Asustek couldn't be contacted. So make of that what you will... ®