Usually the info about the launching of new Intel or AMD processors leaks to the press in advance. At least a few weeks prior to the actual launch, we are pretty much aware of all the specifications, working frequencies and prices of the new processors. The meticulous journalists delving into every detail see, to be very professional in digging out juicy facts about the upcoming products of the leading microprocessor companies. However, the today's announcement of the new Athlon XP from AMD is surprisingly unexpected. AMD has been concealing these drastic changes of their roadmap very successfully, so that the first hints started cropping up in the press only in the end of last week. Nevertheless, the fact is undeniable: today, on August 21, 2002, AMD officially announced two new models in the Athlon XP family. They are Athlon XP 2400+ and Athlon XP 2600+.
This harsh and unexpected demarche of AMD's was evidently aimed at only one single thing: the company is not going to give in and continues the struggle with its main competitor, Intel, for the title of the fastest x86 CPUs manufacturer. Of course, according to their preliminary plan, Athlon XP was supposed to reach 2600+ rating only by the end of the year. However, since the times AMD was working on this plan, Intel has already made a few significant changes to its own roadmap. If you remember, Intel was planning its Pentium 4 2.8GHz to come out only in the very end of the year. Now they are going to start shipping Pentium 4 3.06GHz in November already. Moreover, this CPU will boast HyperThreading technology, which theoretically allows (in case the applications are optimized for it, which is kind of too early to speak about) improving the CPU performance by 30% (as Intel guys claim). As a result, the final Intel roadmap looks as follows:
You will definitely agree that the launching of Athlon XP 2600+ in the end of the year could hardly look any convincing against the background of this roadmap. Especially since AMD cannot afford to let Intel take an indisputable lead in the high-performance processors market, because they need to make sure that the upcoming 8th generation Athlon XP processors (ClawHammer) will get onto fertile soil when they come out in last 2002-early 2003. This seems to be one of the reasons why AMD decided to revise its roadmap and speed up the launching of the new Athlon XP processors, just like Intel, especially since the Fab30 in Dresden using 0.13micron manufacturing technology allows it.
As a result, the today's announcement of the new Athlon XP 2600+ and Athlon XP 2400+, which can boast significantly improved performance, will be only the first move in this direction. Some other steps on AMD's part are to follow, which will help the company to retain a certain parity with Intel in the today's CPU market. According to some preliminary data, they are planning to launch Athlon XP 2800+ in October, which is most likely to be designed to support new 333MHz bus, thus allowing to take full advantage of the DDR333 SDRAM bandwidth, which is little by little becoming a new standard. Then, by the end of this-beginning of the next year, a new Barton core should come out, which will add a twice as large 512KB L2 cache to the features of Athlon XP. The first Barton based CPUs are expected to be rated as something like 3000+. However, around the same time, in 2003 new Athlon processors based on 8th generation architecture are expected to come out, so there is no need to worry about AMD's future in 2003.
But, let's return to today. The launched Athlon XP 2400+ and 2600+ indicate a breakthrough, which allowed AMD to outpace Intel, which processors can now boast the maximum working frequency of only 2.54GHz. However, you shouldn't forget that next Monday Intel will announce Pentium 4 2.66GHz and Pentium 4 2.8GHz and will again leave AMD behind, but the first word is said: AMD can be the first if they wish to. Especially since the new Athlon XP do not use 333MHz bus yet.
