AMD chips chase Intel

AMD has launched two new chips for use in laptop PCs, closing the speed gap on its archrival Intel.

The Althlon XP 2000+ and 1900+ are expected to match the performance of Intel's 2GHz and 1.9GHz Pentium 4 mobile chips.

But although AMD is catching up with Intel, the chip giant still holds the crown for the fastest mobile chip with its 2.2GHz Pentium 4.

The new chips are immediately available in laptops from Hewlett Packard and Fujitsu Siemens, and are expected in machines aimed at the consumer market from Packard Bell later in the year.

"AMD is focused on providing our notebook customers with exceptional mobile PC technology that gives them the freedom to stay connected and work from anywhere - at home, the office or while travelling around the world," said Ed Ellett, vice president of AMD's Client Business division.

"Mobile AMD Athlon XP processors combine outstanding performance and true mobility features to deliver versatility and expand customer choices for people on the go," he added.

The chips will deliver extra performance to run software applications such as video and image editing, DVD playback and complex number-crunching.

Both processors feature AMD's QuantiSpeed architecture, which incorporates a nine-issue, fully pipelined superscalar microarchitecture, a superscalar floating point unit, hardware data pre-fetch and Translation Look-aside Buffers.

They also include support for AMD's 3DNow! Professional instruction set for enhanced multimedia capabilities, and AMD PowerNow! technology for extended battery life.

The chips are compatible with AMD's Socket A infrastructure, and support the advanced 200MHz and 266MHz AMD Athlon front-side bus options.

The new mobile AMD Athlon XP processors 2000+ and 1900+ are priced at $345 (£222) and $239 (£154), respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities.