AMD are in a position similar to Nvidia were about 4 years ago. The then dominating force and seemingly invincible 3dfx were producing graphics cards that Nvidia were unable to compete with, everything changed with the release of the Nvidia Geforce series of cards, a surprise 3dfx never really recovered from, who continued to produce overpriced and lacklustre cards, until eventually they folded, and Nvidia had taken over the market. AMD had also been struggling to keep up with Intel. Until Athlon. Since then it has been Intel chasing AMD's lead. Is it possible that Athlon 4 will be the final nail in the coffin for Intel? Premature perhaps, but ...  Read the complete review

For a while now AMD processors have began to threaten Intel's dominence of the processor market. Until last year their offerings have mainly been directed at the lower end of the processor market. Enter the Athlon Thunderbird. The latest offering from AMD catches the eye immediately with its comparatively lower price. This however is not reflected in performance with a 1.GHz thunderbird clocking in as fast if not faster than the 1.2 Intel offering. All is not smiles and roses however as the Athlon does have some minor draw backs. Firstly it's hot - All processors are hot but this ones red hot, and needs to be kept cool with plenty of ...  Read the complete review

AMDs new XP range of processors sets a new standard in CPU naming conventions. Bravely breaking away from the crowd to introduce performance related naming rather than the sup-till-now standard of clock speed processors, AMD have made it easier to compare apples with apples. And I don't mean translucent blue ones! AMD uses a different manufacturing technique, and different internal structure than Intel, and this makes their processors more efficient per clock cycle than Intels. For example, the new AMD 1500XP actually runs at a clock speed of 1333 Mhz, but performs at least as well as an intel 1500Mhz processor. In fact many reviewers are ...  Read the complete review

AMD's Thunderbird CPU is ideal for people wanting outright speed. Building on the success of their Athlon, the Thunderbird CPU gives Intel's Pentium 4 a run for its money, at a lower price. I've not had any compatibility problems with my processor since I brought it in April. It's as happy running 19 year old software under DOS as it is running SETI under Windows 2000. Some users have reported lockups and other problems with AMD systems - these are caused by factors other than the CPU, such as the motherboard chipset. Although SSE isn't supported, the older MMX and 3D-Now! instructions are supported, giving a boost to programs that can make ...  Read the complete review

It's good to see a processor company not willing to rest on their laurels and looking to improve their products very quickly. AMD have done this with the Athlon Thunderbird. AMD already had a slight lead in terms of speed over the Intel PIII when the initial Slot A Athlon was released. However now the new Thunderbird Athlon's have been released they have increased their lead evenmore over sorry Intel. Poor old Intel are just stumbling from one crisis to another. First they proudly claim to have the quickest CPU on the market when they released the 1.13 GHz PIII. Unfortuanately there were major manufacturing errors in this chip and it had to be pulled from ...  Read the complete review