Moving forward into what was all too previously Intel’s market territory, AMD announced today the fastest performance and budget CPU’s. AMD is shipping the 1.2GHz AMD Athlon processor and the 800MHz AMD Duron processor to computer manufacturers worldwide. Manufacturers to feature these CPU’s include Compaq Computer Corp., Gateway, and Hewlett-Packard. Gateway is reported as having systems currently available. This puts AMD in a much stronger position to wrest from Intel more of its stranglehold on the budget PC, home user, “power user”, and gamer market. With the announcement of the SMP capability of the forthcoming DDR memory driven 760 chipset we may be seeing some of the first serious Enterprise level competition Intel has seen since the purchase of DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation).

Mark Vena, Director of CTO Product Marketing for Compaq Computer Corporation touted AMD’s current momentum in a statement: “With capabilities that are bound to inspire the most hardcore gamers and multimedia users, the 1.2GHz AMD Athlon processor will allow consumers to enjoy yet another new threshold of computing power with Compaq’s Presario 7000 Series of high-end PCs, further enhancing the Presario brand’s reputation for cutting edge performance and value.”. Tom P. Anderson, Direct Consumer Business Manager for HP’s North America Consumer Computing Organization continued the accolades with: “Budget buyers on the search for a ‘can do’ PC will find it in the build-to-order HP Pavilion home PC powered by the 800MHz AMD Duron processor, HP plans to offer these new AMD Duron processor-based HP Pavilion home PCs beginning in November at retail kiosks nationwide and direct from HP.”

All things said and done, even under these conditions Intel has done far worse damage to themselves than AMD has, and AMD DOES have a long way to go to carve a serious niche in Intel’s enterprise server market, but if Intel doesn’t move quickly the pain in their rear WON’T be from the laurels they are sitting on.

Pricing: The 1.2GHz, 1.1GHz, 1GHz, 950MHz, 900MHz and 850MHz AMD Athlon processors are priced at $612, $460, $350, $282, $215, and $193, respectively, each in 1,000-unit quantities. The 800MHz, 750MHz, and 700MHz AMD Duron processors are priced at $170, $112 and $88 respectively, each in 1,000-unit quantities.