AMD's previous AthlonXP model, the Palomino (0.18 micron process) was nearing the end of its competitive life with the release of AthlonXP 2100+ in March 2002. With AMD's arch rival taking back the performance crown by an almost 800 MHz speed advantage, AMD was beginning to lag behind the performance curve in the minds of some consumers. While the enthusiast community has long known that the Athlon core doesn't need the high clock speeds a Pentium 4 in order to do the same amount of work, the general public still remains largely fooled by the MHz-myth. Since it's speed that sells, and since the Pentium 4 has the performance crown, AMD was set to be overshadowed. The response to this has been the new AMD Ahthlon XP on the Thoroughbred core (0.13 micron process). The resulting die shrink should allow the AthlonXP to ramp up CPU speeds, and thus performance, even though it will still remain below that of the Intel Pentium 4.