The guys at HardOCP have managed to get their hands on some benchmarks of the AMD Thunderbird. Yep, not out yet but someone sent some scores to the HardOCP guys. They have CPUMark scores of the 750mhz version, showing a real good increase over the normal Athlon 600 (not super impressing though). Hopefully we'll see benchmarks against actual other 750mhz processors soon.

This story on Electronic Buyers' News is a story on the AMD Q1 results, and offers some quotes from AMD CEO Jerry Sanders. One of them is particulary interesting, as Sanders has confirmed that both the Thunderbird and Spitfire processors will ship with more on-die cache than the Intel Coppermine CPU's (which have 256k), which will probably give them an even nicer edge over the Intel CPU's than was previously assumed.

That promise includes a ramp to 1.5-GHz Athlons, currently slated to appear by next January. Of more immediate interest will be the Spitfire and Thunderbird, Athlons with on-chip cache that will rival the new Coppermine chips rival Intel Corp. produces. Sanders confirmed reports that both the Spitfire and Thunderbird will contain a greater amount of on-chip level-2 cache than the Coppermines, allowing them to outperform Intel's chips in data-intensive applications.

Asus has released a new BIOS for their K7M motherboard, grab it from the files section over at K7M.com.

AMD Zone has a summary of a conference call with AMD. While the first page is pretty much a presentation of the Q1 results, the second page is a Q&A with CEO Jerry Sanders. It has some good info, including the fact that the first mobile Athlon should be out around end of 2000, the X-Box was too costly for them, and there will be a 10 fold in shipping amounts of the 900/950/1000mhz Athlon in Q2.

AMD just announced their Quarter 1 results, which are better than expected. Sales reached $1.09 billion, with earnings of $189.3 million. During the same period last year they had a loss of $128 million. During the first months of 2000 1.2 million Athlons were sold, and they only expect it to get better especially because of the release of the Thunderbird and Spitfitre processors. Quite the changing for AMD, let's hope they can keep it up to give us the good stuff. Thanks AMD Zone for the initial word.

It looks like the new AMD Thunderbird chips are getting closer. ZDNet has an article up suggesting the new CPU line could be coming out as early as the end of next month. Not only will it be sporting an on-die cache, but chances are they will even be faster than the current hot stuff 1GHz chips.

Moving level 2 cache on chip, in general, yields a performance boost of at least 10 percent... [snip] Thunderbird will also utilize copper metal interconnects..

Word over at EETimes is that AMD is now shippin samples of the copper interterconnect versions of the Thunderbird (modified Athlon) CPUs. Also if you guys watch the press you'll see AMD has had all kinds of positive reports on progress and future CPU stuff. The stock made a nice jump after all the good news and things just keep getting better for AMD.

Thunderbird is one of four new processors AMD is slated to introduce this year. Sanders said AMD will introduce its Spitfire processor with on-chip cache by June, followed by its Mustang mobile processor with up to 2 Mbytes of on-chip cache.. <snip>

Tech-Report has done up an updated Athlon overclocking toys article. If you're looking into those 'goldenfinger' style Athlon overclockers (Great stuff, I use one myself) have a look at the Tech-Report guide.

ZDNet has a story on the Spitfire CPU that AMD will be launching soon. It will have 128kb of on-board Level 2 cache, support a 200mhz system bus and will be manufactured using a 0.18micron-process.

If you're in the market for an Athlon motherboard, Anandtech has a roundup of 11 different boards to choose from. The first generation of boards sucked royal ass yes? I'm the victim of an Asus K7M right now myself. crash, reboot, crash, reboot....

The Register has pricing details of the Spitfire, which is AMD's "Celeron" launching April 24. On launch they will also cut prices of the current Athlon processors (here is a list of current prices). You might wanna wait a month before picking up a new cpu :)

According to Guella's site, a Spitfire 550MHz will cost $79, a 600MHz $99, a 650MHz $140, and a 700MHz $175.

Athlon prices, as we have reported here in the past, will be aggressively pitched against Intel's offerings. The 1GHz will drop to $1071, the 950MHz will cost $722, the 900MHz will cost $589, the 850MHz will cost $429, the 800MHz will cost $323, the 750MHz will cost $242, the 700MHz will cost $187, the 650MHz will cost $163, and the 600MHz Athlon will also cost $163 as it is shuffled out of the equation.

AMDZone sent along the official Athlon pricing scheme for the CPUs as of today. Athlon 1000 $1,299, Athlon 950 $899, Athlon 900 $799, Athlon 850 $749, Athlon 800 $599, Athlon 750 $489, Athlon 700 $389, Athlon/650 $299,   and Athlon/600 $229

If you're an overclocker some exciting news for Athlon owners, Abit is coming out with a motherboard finally calling it the KA7. You can check out the preview on SharkyExtreme. They have a new buyers guide there too while you're there.

Tech-Report's Athlon overclocking FAQ has been updated with more info on software L2 cache control, the Golden Fingers cards, VIA's KX133 chipset and the new processors.

The guys at AMDZone has a new preview of the next-gen AMD cpu called SledgeHammer. It's coming at us with those nasty 64bit paths.

Looks like we can expect some pretty serious CPU price cuts with the release of thoe 1GHz chips a little while ago. AMD is going to be cutting prices on their 800mhz chip to cost approx 50% of the same clocked Intel chip according to ZDNet UK. This article over at TheRegister also talks about AMD's price plans.

The company's 800MHz Athlon chip will soon cost up to 50 percent less than an equivalent Pentium III chip processor. Reductions on other Athlon processors are also expected, according to the sources.

While on the CPU topic, here's a bit on Intel and laptops, and then another one about some upcoming CPU technology targetted at laptops.

An evening roundup of CPU happenings for you guys to check out. 3DGN has an interview with AMD asking some pretty good questions about the future chips they are working on. The AMD sidesteps the majority of stuff but there is a little bit of hinting in there at least. Next the guys at SlotA have some word on upcoming Abit motherboards for Athlon users. After that, you can check out the latest CPU update over at SharkyExtreme. You cant pick up those 1GHz Intel or Athlon chips just yet unless you wanna buy a whole system, damn OEMS...

There's a new Athlon Overclocking Guide on Dan's Data, for if those 1Ghz processors make you cry at your newly purchased Athlon which isn't quite as speedy.

Since the whole AMD vs Intel battle is just all the rage, Speedy3D has done up an article covering just that. Basically I dont care who wins the battle, as long as they keep busting out with faster and faster CPUs :)

Well, it was a pretty interesting weekend for the CPU wars. AMD and Intel got in a pissing match for the 1GHz prize as anticipated and it looks like AMD is coming out first with the 1GHz chip today, and Intel is looking at a Wednesday release. Here is a bit of the official press release from AMD that came out early this morning (12:03am)

... AMD is currently shipping its 1GHz AMD Athlon processors priced at $1,299 in 1,000 unit quantities. AMD is also announcing the availability of 950MHz and 900MHz AMD Athlon processors. The 950MHz AMD Athlon processor is priced at $999 in 1,000 unit quantities. The 900MHz AMD Athlon processor is priced at $899 in 1,000 unit quantities. <snip>

Anyone remember back when AMD was saying they could ship 1GHz chips early last month? Looks like they werent kidding.