AMD slashes Athlon prices
By Our Corporate Bureau | 27 Oct 1999
Advanced Micro Devices has cut the prices of its flagship Athlon processors by up to 18 per cent. This comes in the wake of arch-rival Intel's Pentium III chip launch on Monday and corresponding price reductions (see 'New technology chips from Intel').
Although AMD had positioned the Athlon at the higher end of the market (see 'AMD lines up Athlon against P III'), these price cuts make the Athlon chip somewhat more affordable than Intel's latest Pentium III chips, which have the same clock speed. The steepest price cut is the 18 per cent reduction, from $849 to $699, for the 700MHz Athlon.
The price of the 650MHz Athlon has been cut 16 per cent from $615 to $519. The price of the 600MHz Athlon has been cut by 7 per cent, from $449 to $419, and that of an 550MHz Athlon by 8 per cent, from $304 to $279, while that of the 500MHz Athlon holds steady at $209. These prices are for quantities of 1,000 units or more.
The 700MHz Athlon's new price of $699 is $55 cheaper than that of Intel's 700MHz Pentium III, which is priced at $754. The 650MHz Athlon is priced at $519 while Intel's 650MHz Pentium III sells at $583.
The Athlon chip, which is supported by the AMD750 chip set's 200MHz system bus, is available in desktops such as the Presario 5900Z from Compaq Computer and IBM's Aptiva S800 series.