by Anna Filatova
08/17/2002 | 11:34 PM
There are a lot of rumors cropping up on the web lately about the upcoming announcements of the new AMD processors. Different sources reports different pieces of info, which are sometimes sensational and even contradicting with one another, so that we cannot ever get a clear picture of what is actually happening in this American company. Nevertheless, some changes are to come, so I decided to express my opinion on the matter, which might help you to figure out what’s going on in the processor market.
I would like to remind you that according to the initial plans, AMD was going to launch two more Athlon XP models besides Athlon XP 2200+ based on the 0.13micron Thoroughbred core announced in June. The June plans showed clearly that in Q3 2002 we should be able to see Athlon XP 2400+ and in Q4 – Athlon XP 2600+. Both processors were initially designed to support 266MHz bus.<%BANNER[article]%>
However, they were conducting these plans at the moment when Intel, their main competitor, hadn’t yet announced the speeding up of their roadmap. That is why then only Pentium 4 2.8GHz was supposed to compete with the new Athlon XP 2600+ due in the end of the year. Later on, Intel changed its plans and now they promise to have Pentium 4 3.06GHz CPU enhanced with HyperThreading support as well.
This pushed AMD to consider the possibility of speeding up its own plans too. This situation as well as low yields of the current Thoroughbred revision forced the company to develop a new Thoroughbred core stepping, which should support higher core frequencies (we have already mentioned it in our news). The new core stepping was supposed to allow launching Athlon XP 2800+ working at 266MHz bus frequency by the end of this year. However, the new core revision could be produced in mass quantities only in October at the earliest. At the same time, the currently used core revision showed such low yields of the dies working at 2GHz+ frequencies that even the launching of Athlon XP 2400+ appeared a tough thing to put into life.
Therefore, AMD mad another few changes to its roadmap, so that the launching of Athlon XP 2400+ was postponed until October, to be made together with the announcement of Athlon XP 2600+. And the launching of Athlon XP 2800+ CPU appeared due in December. Note that we are still talking about CPUs with 266MHz bus.
However, this is far not the end of the story. When they realized that Pentium 4 2.8GHz would be out on August 26 already, they understood that this way AMD would lose the autumn sales of high-performance CPUs in September-early October. They will be able to offer only the same Athlon XP 2200+ as an alternative to Intel’s new 2.8GHz processor. This makes even the mere thought of competition ridiculous.
This is when AMD suddenly remembered about one more weapon they’ve got: 333MHz bus, which will allow improving the processor performance by 10-15% without raising the core frequency. In other words, they could resort to this weapon any time, without even waiting for the new core stepping to come in production. Theoretically, Thoroughbred core allowed using this bus from the very beginning, however, the company never implemented this feature. As we learned from some mainboard manufacturers, their latest products based on VIA KT333 chipset also support 166MHz FSB, though unofficially. That is why once they need to claim official support, all they will have to do will be to announce a new mainboard revision at the most. As a result, AMD seems to have no trouble introducing 333MHz bus support.
Having weighed all cons and pros, AMD decided to enable the support of the new system bus and to launch new Athlon XP CPUs working at 2GHz core clock frequency at the highest with 333Mhz bus, which will allow them to increase the rating of their processors in no time. According to our sources, Athlon XP processors rated as 2400+ and 2600+ can be expected to come within next couple of weeks.
However, summing up everything mentioned above I have to say that despite my previous suppositions, the launching of Athlon XP processors with faster 333MHz bus is a pretty possible thing. This is a very simple and attractive way for AMD to improve its situation in the market that is why it would be silly of them not to take this advantage. So, now we expect a new bus, new processors and a new wave of competition between AMD and Intel.
Please bear in mind that although everything mentioned above is based on real facts, this is just my own opinion, which might be not quite correct in places. Anyway, this stir is not for nothing…