Athlon Killer - This December !

[Marmita]

You can read this on www.theregister.co.uk

it seems intel is going to ship the new IA32 "Willamette" CPU 9 months before schedule !!! although Intel is shipping 0.18u chips for more then half a year it is a big surprise that they shifted the production of this chip from Q3 2000 to Q4 1999...
The new chip will debut at 1100Mhz and will double the current Athlon top of the line performance !!!

[Gurm]

Marmita, you DO know that the register is a JOKE technical paper, right?

- Ash

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G. U. R. M. It's not hard to spell, is it? Then don't screw it up!
The word "Gurm" is in no way Copyright 1999 Jorden van der Elst.

[Rags]

Ash,

The Register may add humor into their stories, but most of their stories (especially the ones about roadmaps and pricing) are pretty close to accurate.

Rags

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Somebody give me a cheeseburger!!!

[red2]

And there is already a "Williamette killer" out now. It is called "Alpha"

[motub]

I'll grant you that The Register is not... quite... a joke technical paper, but they do tend to be gullible... do we <u>really</u> believe that Chipzilla can ship a product 9 months early??? Even if we assume they dropped everything else-- which we know they didn't, since they've been fighting that losing battle to get the i820 up and running, not to mention leaning on mobo manufacturers who produce Athlon boards-- it seems unlikely for a number of reasons...

We're talking about a massive re-allocation of resources, and some loss as well, given that projects would have to be scrapped... and this would have had to have occurred some time ago, in order for the chip to actually be something like "ready" as opposed to "just get it out the door, who cares if it explodes upon power on, we'll take the lawsuits". I'm willing to believe that Intel is pretty desperate, but I can't see how they could reasonably do this, how their shareholders would let them do this, or how it could possibly be a <u>functional</u> shipping part (rather than, say, "beyond buggy").

Convince me, somebody, if you can.

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Holly

[UncleJoe]

Even if there is a litle piece of truth in that article, it only confirms the fact that big I have underestimated badly AMD and their products... and now it (intel) is forced to hurry up with their next products .(hmm... will it have an affect on quality ???) Lets wait and see ...

[Scytale]

For the first time in history there's a reason for Intel to consider selling leading (state of the art) technology, instead of phased technology. Yes, they could do it, and there's a reason to do it.

[SteveC]

I believe The Register's stories - it's a very informative site, (besides it's UK based too, so it MUST be great! ).
And if Intel do have this chip near to completion, then it may well be true. Intel don't like releasing new chips, do they? They just string out the old ones for as long as possible soaking up as much dosh as they can for each one. Well, for all we know, the PIII has existed for 5 years, and Intel just didn't think the marketplace was ready for it, so they dragged out the old Pentiums and the PII for as long as they could. Keeping customers happy by simply increasing clock speed and the odd bolt on extra (MMX).
Here's to hoping anyway!

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[Scytale]

Exactly! Competition is starting to pay off... In other words: Yeah baby! Yeah!

[red2]

If Intel had/has all these "super" chip designs fully completed and tested, they would directly have them compete with DEC and Sparc, but they don't, so I doubt they have been hoarding technology. I believe they do try to milk a chip for as long as they can though, but AMD is seeing to it that they don't.

[SteveC]

Gurm, did you read that article about the eclipse? You must admit though, it was funny!
They do have articles designed to lighten the boring day in the life of a computer journalist - the more the better, but not too many though....

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[Electric Amish]

Yeah, they may have a CPU ready, but are there any signs of a mainboard for it?? With their current bit of luck with the i820, they may want to shove a few resources in that direction.

Anyway, I'm still going Athlon on my next upgrade.

Paul

[IceStorm]

1100 Mhz chip won't be available for TWO MONTHS, as per the article at the Register. They're doing an nVidia - announcing, then making everyone sit on their hands and avoid buying what's currently available.

I read The Register every day. Great stuff! :-)

The Alpha can't play Half-Life, now can it? What good is a CPU that can't play Half-Life? :-)

And if you'll notice, there's an article on The Register's front page about 1Ghz Athlons on the 10th of January. Unfortunately, SharkyExtreme talked to AMD, and AMD says, officially, that there won't be a 1Ghz Athlon that soon (well, not one that is rated to run at 1Ghz off the line - go Kryotech!).

Anywho, I haven't seen a re-release of the i820 chipset, have you? And from the looks of the pricing, why the hell go PIII at all? Go Xeon (if not Athlon) - the chipset works, and the CPUs are literally $50 more than the same speed PIII's.

[SteveC]

Um Xeons only $50 more than their normal PIII counterparts? With how much cache is that? I wish it was only $50 more for the 2mb version......

Is the 512kb cached Xeon basically identical to the PIII? Faster cache is it, isn't it?

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[IceStorm]

The new Xeons are $50 more in bulk, relative to the PIII. This doesn't mean that's what they RETAIL at, but something tells me if you look hard enough, you'll find them. :-)

Xeons run their cache at the full speed of the CPU, unlike the PIII that runs it at 1/2 speed. There's probably other differences which necessitate the use of such a HUGE cartridge, but I'm not sure as to the rest of them.

Anywho, here's a link to the price info:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/991012-000002.html

Anyone wanna go in on a box of 10? :-)