In a matter of days, Advanced Micro Devices is expected to release The Next Athlon. A month later, Intel Corp. will follow up in an attempt to reclaim the title of speed champ, announcing The Next Pentium (4, to be precise). The Athlon, AMD´s implicitly parallel µarchtitecure, will run at a 1.33GHz frequency (also 1.30GHz, and there´s more details coming on that). Intel´s more explicitly parallel (and generally more scalar) µarchitecture is, according to reviewers and hardware experts, geared towards achieving higher clock frequencies -- such as 1.70GHz in this case -- at the expense of lower average ipc (less per-clock performance) in general.

Of course, that lower ipc rule isn´t universal. There are areas in which the P4 excels, even when lowered to clock frequencies more suited to the competition. The release of the 1.30GHz Athlon will make it a lot easier to compare at similar frequency levels, say, to a 1.30GHz Pentium 4, but while that is an interesting idea, it´s not our focus today. We´re looking into total performance, not just performance when you cripple one of the contestants.