AMD IS SET launch some new-flavour Athlons on October 1st. The chipmaker will unveil its long-awaited 333MHz frontside bus in the 2700+ and 2800+ Athlon XPs, on that date, our sources tell us, pointing to a revival of the chip wars between AMD and Intel in the run-up to the pre-Christmas buying binge.
And the buying binge this year is crucial to both companies as the past two years have been sorry ones for technology companies weeping at the feet of their bank managers.
We expect also expect AMD to cut the price of its lower-grade Athlons following the launch of its new babies, possibly making the newly-introduced 2600+ the bargain chip to slip into Christmas stockings. OEMs may not have samples of the chip until a clear week after the "launch" date, which coincides with the launch of the Nforce 2 "chipset".
We also expect a whole new round of battling over benchmarkers as thr chip companies each try to persuade a speed-obsessed public that theirs is the faster chip