AMD introduces XP2400+, 2600+ shocker

The 2400+ and the 2600+, said AMD, are priced officially at $193 and $297, but you're unlikely to see them in systems until next month, although every hardware site+dog is reviewing them.

AMD dropped prices on its other Athlon XPs a week or so back.

So far there are reviews of the processors at Tech Report, AMD Zone, Overclockers and at Hot Hardware. There's also a review of these processors at Danish site Hardinfo and one at AMDMB.

There's a review of the beasties over at Via Hardware, which suggests AMD is thundering forward with this and the 2400+.

Ace's Hardware reviews the 2600+, and says AMD has managed to give the Athlon a little more headroom. It has clocked the processor to 2.4GHz with aircooling - the frequency rate of the 2600+ is actually 2.133GHz.

By the end of the day, there will no doubt be many more sites looking at the processors.

The engineers at AMD have made changes to the processor and the heat problems associated with the 2200+ appear to have been banished.

There's no sign of the 333MHz front side bus yet - but that is still being developed by engineers, our sources tell us.

According to Tech Report, the price performance ratio of the XP 2600+ "is a steal".

But Intel is not going to lie down and just watch AMD steal its glory. As we also reported earlier, Intel will introduce a 2.80GHz Pentium 4 very shortly, and we believe that it has already shredded its September 1st prices - we'll report on this in a separate story later today. µ