AMD ups the ante with 700 MHz Athlon

Advanced Micro Designs (AMD) unleashed its latest Pentium III-killer this week, the 700 MHz Athlon microprocessor. The Athlon, which was already beating Intel's best microprocessor, the Pentium III 600, in benchmark tests, extends its lead with this latest version. And AMD's chips cost significantly less than the competition: $850 per processor for large orders.

"With today's announcement of the new 700MHz AMD Athlon processor, AMD continues to deliver the fastest, highest-performing x86 processor available," said Dana Krelle, Vice President of Marketing for AMD's Computation Products Group. "This new addition to the AMD Athlon processor family provides unprecedented performance for cutting-edge commercial and consumer software applications."

Numerous hardware makers, including IBM and Compaq, have agreed to ship systems featuring the new CPU, which utilizes a 200 MHz system bus. The fastest Intel bus is currently 100 MHz, though the company hopes to start shipping 133 MHz versions soon