SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The microprocessor speed battle between Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. continues to rev up. Intel plans to unveil its 1.7-GHz Pentium 4 chip in a few weeks, while AMD is expected to introduce a 1.4-GHz--or possibly faster--Athlon processor in a few months, according to industry sources.
Neither firm would comment on the yet-unannounced new processors. Because of its much deeper pipeline, the Intel Pentium 4 may have similar data throughput performance as slightly lower Athlon clock speed processors, due to prefetch misprediction operations, according to Nathan Brookwood, principal of InSight64 market research firm, Saratoga, Calif.
However, higher clock speeds offsets much of the latency, putting AMD under pressure to keep its Athlon processors from not falling behind in speed.
Intel is also expected next week to cut prices on its existing family of Pentium 4 processors by about $65 each, racheting up competition with AMD in the high performance market.
The 1.5-GHz Pentium 4 is expected to drop to the $560-$565 range, the 1.4-GHGz to $375-$380 range and the 1.3-GHz to $265-$270.
At the end of May, Intel has previously scheduled another price cut for processors, including the Pentium 4. "Clearly Intel is cutting Pentium 4 prices to spur demand and help ramp the processor in the market," said Peter Glaskowsky, processor analyst with MicroDesign Resources in Sunnyvale, Calif.
"As yields increase, the high costs to produce Pentium 4 come down somewhat, but I believe the big price cuts are beyond any manufacturing cost savings. They will cut heavily into the Pentium 4 profit margins, as Intel does everything it can to establish it in the market," he said.
Ironically, Glaskowsky believed the Pentium 4 profit margins are below the much lower-priced Pentium III chips. He said in the early stages of a new product life cycle, you would expect just the opposite, with Pentium 4 selling at high margins.
An Intel spokesman declined to comment on Pentium 4 margins.
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