As we know, AMD eventually planned to utilise its 333MHz system bus with the Athlon XP 2700+ processors and above. However, not is appears that the company will also supply its Athlon XP 2600+ models, also utilising the higher-speed FSB.

The company originally promised to supply 100 thousands of the CPUs with 333MHz processor bus this quarter. As we have reported a lot of times, the company has a lot of problems with increasing the core-clock of the current line of the chips, as a result, it becomes a really tough task for them to launch the high-speed processors in mass-production. Currently the company only manages to supply its Athlon XP 2400+ running at 2000MHz in mass-quantities and the products are not very widely spread on the market yet so to speak. I am not even talking about the 2600+ and 2700+ models that should come later this year. Considering the fact that only the more powerful Athlon XP 2700+ makes use of the faster system bus, we may doubt that AMD will be able to supply 100 thousands of such CPUs on the market due to the present problems with the low yield for the high-speed chips. Nevertheless, AMD may provide some processors with lower frequency, but higher FSB core-clock. This may be the reason why AMD has decided to offer the Athlon XP 2600+ CPUs with the 333MHz FSB.

The official evidence of the Athlon XP 2600+’s existence for the high-speed PSB can be found here at AMD’s web-site. Unfortunately, they do not declare the actual core-speed of the device, but it is likely that it will be a bit lower compared to 2133MHz of the “original” Athlon XP 2600+. It is quite logical to assume that the processors will run at either 2083MHz (x12.5 multiplier) or 2000MHz (x12.0 multiplier).

With the introduction of the Athlon XP 2600+ CPUs with 333MHz system bus AMD will be able to achieve two goals at the same time: to deliver the announced quantity of processors with 333MHz FSB support and to provide more high-speed CPUs without increasing the actual core-speed.