IDF CPU Report - Intel & AMD

Athlon Chipsets

It is going to be up to AMD to release the next major chipset for the Athlon since VIA is going to be focusing on more of the low-cost market with their upcoming Athlon chipsets, including an integrated video solution.  While this does leave ALi to help out with providing the Athlon with the next major chipset platform, AMD has already committed to supplying the next two major chipsets so there isn’t a need for immediate support from ALi.

The AMD 760 chipset, the successor to the AMD 750 that was introduced with the Athlon last year will add DDR SDRAM support to the Athlon platform as well as offer an increase in the Athlon’s FSB frequency to 133MHz DDR (266MHz). 

We are on the verge of running out of clock multipliers with the Athlon as 10.5x is the maximum clock multiplier on all Athlon CPUs available today.  AMD’s 1.1GHz demonstration used a modified Athlon PCB to allow for the higher clock multiplier to be used.  The introduction of the Thunderbird should change this, but until then companies like Kryotech are working with motherboard manufacturers to try and push the Athlon’s EV6 bus to 133MHz DDR now.  Whether or not this will be possible before the AMD 760 chipset is released is up for grabs but it’s interesting nevertheless.

An interesting thing to note is that the AMD 760 chipset will be Socket-A only, meaning that by the time the AMD 760 makes its way to market, you better be using a Socket-A processor otherwise you’re stuck with the older generation of chipsets.  AMD is hoping to ramp up their Socket-A production very quickly since they are somewhat behind Intel in that respect.

And finally, following the release of the AMD 760 chipset we should finally see the AMD 770 chipset which will be the first dual processor Athlon chipset to hit the market.  Currently the lack of any server-level motherboards/chipsets is keeping the Athlon from entering that market, this should hopefully change towards the end of this year and on into 2001.