Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has launched the first members of its new Duron family of low-cost processors, running at 600MHz, 650MHz and 700MHz. Duron is AMD’s first processor for budget PCs that takes advantage of an advanced chip design, or “microarchitecture,” that was unveiled last year for its higher-performance Athlon processor. AMD said the design brings several technical improvements over its existing processor for low-cost PCs, the K6-2. Among the improvements is a speedier 200MHz system bus. The system bus is a conduit that funnels data between the processor and other parts of a PC. The Duron also includes a larger on-chip memory cache than the K6-2, and AMD’s Enhanced 3DNow instructions, designed to boost multimedia performance. Prices for the new Durons are US$112 for the 600MHz version, $154 for the 650MHz version, and $192 for the 700MHz version, in 1000-unit quantities, AMD said. AMD, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. can be reached at http://www.amd.com/.
Prices listed are in Cdn currency.