Price: $325 - $375 ESP
Ship Date: February 1999
Everyone with a lust for dramatic moments loves an underdog, regardless if it's a professional football team like the Buffalo Bills, or a semiconductor manufacturer like the folks at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
AMD certainly qualifies as an underdog, mainly because their principal competitor, Intel, is over 50 times larger in market capitalization value than AMD as of November 1998. Truly a David vs. Goliath scenario if there ever was one, and a war that's been fought for the better part of 15 years now.
During the long fight to not only maintain market share in the face of the endless Intel marketing onslaught but also to even increase it, AMD has had several recent successes that have placed them in the best position of strength they've ever been in. A position in which their products are competing toe to toe on equal terms with Intel's best, at virtually an identical price point.
AMD's newest technology offering, the K6-3 400MHz CPU, offers the competitive company their first true chance at actually outperforming Intel's current top of the line CPUs, the Pentium 2 400 and 450.