Chip Firm AMD has now formally announced the existence of its Athlon XP+ family and said that Arthur Andersen will audit the ratings to help re-assure consumers of their authenticity.The so-called "PR Ratings" compare the performance of AMD Athlons with Palomino cores against their own processors and are based on 35 different benchmarks, according to a representative at the launch of the chips in Milano today.That means there's no easy way to transform, say a 2.2GHz Pentium 4 or a 2.4GHz Pentium 4's clock speed into an AMD rating - more's the pity.Responding to a question whether AMD would now be accused of confusing end users, a representative at the Milano press conference said poor performance from Intel Pentium 4 processors but fast clock speeds had forced his company to introduce the PR rating, because consumers would otherwise be dazzled by just the megahertz rating.
News source: The Inquirer
News source: The Inquirer
"The problem right now is Intel is getting some momentum back with their 2 gigahertz Pentium 4 chip," said Needham & Co. analyst Dan Scovel. "They stole the crown back after a six-month hiatus."
AMD has been, for several months now, stressing to reporters and analysts that the clock speed of a microprocessor, the brains of PC, is not the last word on overall performance. There are benchmark tests that have been done showing AMD's Athlon -- running at a slower clock speed -- outperforms Intel's Pentium 4 chip on certain tasks.
Some wonder, though, whether it's too little too late.
"If you're going to get serious about weighing price performance, I think it's a valid point that AMD is making," Scovel said. "But beating the drum at this point is kind of like closing the door after the horse has left the barn."
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