SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Advanced Micro Devices Inc. plans to roll out an entire product line based on its new processor, the Athlon by the end of next year, by which time the Athlon family could be positioned to replace the company's current workhorse, the K6.
AMD this week unveiled the initial versions of the Athlon chip, with clock speeds ranging from 500 MHz to 650 MHz, and aimed at the high-performance consumer PC segment. The company is introducing the 650-MHz version a few months ahead of its original schedule, and product marketing manager Gary Bixler said that indicates the success AMD has had in manufacturing the chips. The Athlon is the industry's only seventh-generation microprocessor, he noted, and the 650-MHz part is currently the fastest MPU on the market.
Next year, AMD will expand the Athlon line with three new models: the Athlon Ultra, aimed at the server and workstation market, the Athlon Professional, targeting the enterprise PC space and the Athlon Select, for the consumer market. "This chip will allow us to compete at all price points," Bixler said, "including the profitable ones."
With the Athlon line expanding from high end to low end, there may not be much room for the company's K6 chips, which are currently found only at the bottom segments.
"The K6 and Socket 7 infrastructure is going to come increasingly under attack," said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst for market research firm Insight 64 (Saratoga, Calif.). He expects to see the Athlon chips in place across most of the market segments by the end of next year. And like Intel Corp.'s original Pentium and Pentium Pro chips, which were gradually replaced by faster devices, there is not likely to be much room in the future for the K6.
A key feature of the Athlon is a 200-MHz system bus, which can scale upwards to 400 MHz. That will provide immediate performance increases for systems switching to 133-MHz memory chips now, and will also be able to handle the upcoming double-data-rate DRAM technology. In contrast, Intel chips now are running with a 100-MHz system bus, and the company is attempting to switch to 133 MHz this year. "This faster bus is very important," said Brookwood. "And it has a lot of room to grow."
In 1,000-unit shipments, the 650-MHz Athlon is priced at $849, the 600-MHz version is $615, the 550-MHz version is $449 and the 500-MHz version goes for $249.
