AMD's newest chip attempts to raise the bar
C|Net | at | by Mike
Advanced Micro Devices has again upped the stakes in its processor performance race with rival Intel. AMD on Monday launched the new Athlon XP 1900+, its highest performance desktop processor issued to date. The new 1900+ chip runs at a clock speed of 1.6GHz. The resulting megahertz boost over its 1.53GHz Athlon XP 1800+ is expected by many to push the chip's performance ahead of that of Intel's Pentium 4. AMD argues that its Athlon provides better overall performance, even though its clock speed is lower than Pentium 4's. This argument, in part, was the influence behind the launch of the company's new Athlon XP naming scheme, which granted model numbers to various versions of the chip in place of clock-speed measurements.