AMD Answers to Intel's Challenge

Monday at the International Solid-State Circuit Conference in San Francisco, Advanced Micro Devices showed off a 1.1 GHZ processor, thereby surpassing Intel's fastest chip on the market. Using new features due in the Athlon processors of the future, AMD was able to surpass the 1 GHz mark in its latest chip, the Thunderbird.

With an integraged L2 Cache and copper interconnects, AMD's next generation processor dubbed Thunderbird, is set to rumble the seats of Intel's next generation processors. Using a system built with off-the-shelf parts, AMD demonstrated the speed of the new chip.

While it is not certain when the new processors will ship, AMD expects to begin shipping a 1 GHz Athlon at the end of this year, and Thunderbird based processors in the second quarter.