AMD Now A Factor In Cyrix's Performance Rating

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March 16, 1999 (11:45 AM EST)

AMD Now A Factor In Cyrix's Performance Rating

By Mark Hachman,

National Semiconductor's Cyrix subsidiary now factors in processors designed by Advanced Micro Devices in its performance rating, a company spokeswoman said.

Cyrix's PR, or performance rating, now is designed to compare its chips against a class of microprocessors that includes the Intel Celeron and AMD K6, a company spokeswoman said. Historically, the rating has been compared only with chips designed by Intel.

"As we became wholly focused on the sub-$1,000 PC market, we began comparing them against the Intel Celeron and the AMD K6," she said. AMD was added as the company became "more and more of a player," she said.

AMD and Intel both use the clock speed of their microprocessors, measured in MHz, to compare their chips against those of the competition. Microprocessors produced by AMD and Cyrix also are compatible with Intel's chips; Intel-designed software runs on all three architectures. But the design of the Cyrix M II processor is different enough that its chips yield performance similar to Intel's Celeron while actually running at a slower clock speed.

To indicate this, Cyrix has sold its chips according to its own PR rating, which has varied according to the performance of the chips opposite it. Today, for example, an M II with a PR333 rating actually runs at 250 MHz, using an 83-MHz system bus.