ZD pre-announces Gateway Athlon

Earlier this week we reported that Gateway is shipping samples of PCs using the Athlon processor, and now confirmation has come from an unlikely source. ZD Net has posted a guide to buying PCs on its Web site, and a Gateway machine, called the Select, is listed as shipping with a 600MHz AMD Athlon processor and costing $2,499. Although it is not certain from the piece whether the products are already for sale, this information, coupled with other reliable information, suggests that Gateway, along now with IBM and Compaq, is serious about second sourcing processors for its machines. The page on ZD Net can be found here. ®