Athlons hit 1.3GHz
And next up on the "we told you so" feed
AMD's Athlons will be breaking a new barrier in the new future, with the release of the 1.3GHz DDR part. HardOCP had a picture of one last week, with a surprisingly striking purple/blue core, and according to The Register this morning, PC Pro magazine features a Dabs.com advert for the chip, pricing it at £220 with either a 200MHz or 266MHz DDR core. Despite the bold advertising coup, competitors (and consumers) are complaining that the company's AMD processors page lists nothing above the 1.2GHz part, which, at the time of writing, they claim to have an unlucky 13 of in total, priced at £210 plus VAT. Even if the advert may have come as much as a week or more ahead of the official release (and the company's stock), it's an interesting indication of price. With VAT and shipping, customers looking for a 1.3GHz part should expect to pay £260, which is about what a 900MHz part cost three months ago. Technically the KT133 chipset doesn't actually support 200MHz at 13x, so you may ask just what is the point in offering a chip that nobody can use? Well, remember a few days ago we spoke of some 1.2GHz Athlons somehow gaining a few MHz in FSB when upped to 12.5x, apparently for no discernible reason? We fancy this is AMD's way of providing a 1.3GHz core on the KT133 chipset. The other implication here is that some current 1.2GHz chips have 1.3GHz cores, or at least use the same stepping. Related Feature - Overclocking roundup