Following its arch-rival from Santa Clara, the Sunnyvale-based semiconductor-maker reportedly plans to roll-out its Athlon XP 3200+ processor next month, as reported over here. As we know, Intel intends to launch the Pentium 4 3.20GHz CPU in April this year along with its i875P aka Canterwood chipset, as a result, AMD really may announce the CPU either a couple of days after Intel or a couple of days before Intel in order to show its ability to be up to par with rival.

The main “feature” of the new processor will be 400MHz EV-6 bus, according to the source. SiS has already announced its SiS748 chipset with official support of so fast FSB, while NVIDIA Corporation is reportedly showcasing its nForce2 running at 400MHz PSB behind the closed doors at CeBIT in Hannover, so, the information looks more or less credible. Although there are no official confirmations, it is generally expected that VIA will also offer something for the probably last and final AMD Athlon processor on the K7 core.

We have no idea about the core-clock of the forthcoming CPU and that is why we cannot make any predictions or assumptions about its performance. The situation is difficult to forecast also because of the fact that AMD adjusted the core-clock of the Athlon 3000+ processor from 2250MHz to 2167MHz and there are no guarantees that nothing of this kind will or will not happen at this time.

Remember that the information is obtained from an unofficial source, therefore, it may eventually appear incorrect, as even official roadmaps from both AMD and Intel are subject to change without any notice.