Intel and AMD are locked in competition again, racing each other to produce ever faster and better computer microprocessors.
AMD has led for the past two months, having introduced its super-fast 700-megahertz Athlon chip in August. The company has sold 200,000 of the chips worldwide and is expected to roll out the Athlon 800 MHz chip early next year.
AMD also expects to roll out a 1 gigahertz chip before Intel by the summer.
Intel is trying to narrow the gap with its latest Pentium III chip, codenamed Coppermine and released last Friday.
Computer-makers IBM, Compaq, Gateway, Acer and Hewlett-Packard have announced desktops sporting the new Intel chip.
Despite having a substantial lead on Intel, AMD has only secured contracts with IBM, Compaq and British-based Tiny Computer. In Hong Kong, however, AMD has scored success with local computer- and motherboard-makers VTech, MagicPro and MicroGram.
Coppermine comes in two flavours for desktop PCs and for mobile PCs and has four clock speeds - 650, 667, 700 and 733 MHz. It was made using 0.18 micron technology and features a 133 MHz system bus. The chips were priced between US$309 to $767.