1GHz Thunderbird shipping today

As predicted by The Register last week, Thunderbirds are go! AMD today duly unveiled the Thunderbird variant of its Athlon processor at Computex in Taiwan earlier today.

The chip comes in six flavours – 1000MHz at $990; 950MHz at $759; 900MHz at $589; 850MHz at $507; 800MHz at $359; and 750MHz at $319. An AMD Europe spokesman said that all six frequencies are available for immediate delivery. Intel has announced a 1GHz part – coincidentally also priced at $990 - which will not be available until Q3. The slower Tbirds are priced slightly below the Intel equivalents.

Also debuting in Taiwan is the Celeron basher Duron, initially in 700MHz at $192; 650MHz at $154; and 600MHz at $112. Again, pricing bears a startling similarity to Intel equivalents – the fastest Celeron available at the moment being the 600MHz at $112.

Faster 633 and 667MHz Celerons are due in a couple of week's time Incoming! Intel goes launch crazy.

Duron also sports a 200MHz FSB, increasing pressure on Chipzilla to do something about the increasingly-archaic 66MHz of the Celeron. The 700MHz Celeron, pencilled in for September, could well have a 100MHz FSB.

AMD plans a 'formal' launch for Duron later this month, so we'll be looking out our tuxedos in readiness.

The Register's very own Mike Magee is currently in Taipei for Computex and will be sniffing out more on the new AMD chips real soon now. ®

Links

Sharky Extreme has a review of the 1GHz Tbird
Gamer's Depot has more info
CPU Review looks at both Thunderbird and Duron