Less than a week after unveiling its fastest processor, Advanced Micro Devices Monday took the wraps off an even faster chip for desktop PCs.The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based semiconductor maker introduced its AMD Athlon XP processor 3000+, which is immediately availability from NEC"s Packard Bell consumer line starting in Europe. Some two-dozen U.S. computer manufacturers are expected to follow suit in the next few weeks including Hewlett-Packard.
Priced at $588 in 1,000-unit quantities, the new chip is based on AMD"s 32-bit "Barton" architecture and features either 384KB or 640KB of total on-chip cache memory, QuantiSpeed architecture and support for AMD"s 3DNow! -- a preset list of multimedia instructions. The new Athlon is compatible with AMD"s Socket A infrastructure, and supports the advanced 266 or 333 front-side bus. Like other Athlons before it, the processors were manufactured using AMD"s 0.13 micron copper process technology in Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany.
AMD boasts up to 17 percent better performance than a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 from rival Intel.