Reviews of processors are usually out of date as soon as they are written. For example, AMD has recently announced its new 1.2GHz chip with DDR support in the chipset (see our News section for more information). But actually getting them to journalists takes time. Here's one we prepared earlier.

We recently got hold of one of AMD's White Boxes. This is basically a reference machine that is set up by AMD to give an idea of the performance available from their 1.1GHz processor. If you're in the market for a fast machine then this processor could be ideal. It's not as expensive as the Intel equivalent and from experience appears to be more stable at these faster speeds.

AMD also plans to have dual processor technology available in the very near future (as soon as they get the support chipset sorted). This will then give them entry into the server market place and should really start to rattle Intel. You've only got to look at AMD's latest profits to see that they are really starting to hurt the other chip giant.

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It's important to make sure that any motherboard that you use with this chip is ratified by AMD. When a chip of this speed comes out many board makers attempt to get something out into the market place as quickly as possible. AMD has a policy of ratifying boards for compatibility and it's important to make sure that any system that you buy uses one of these boards. Any other may well run OK at 1.1GHz but when AMD bring out their next speed hike you could find that a non-ratified board won't handle the extra speed.

The box that AMD supplied for testing used a Gigabyte board with onboard sound and modem/Ethernet. It had only three spare PCI expansion slots; we've always associated this type of board with the value-for-money end of the market place. However when we benchmarked the system it turned in the fastest performance figures we've ever seen. Admittedly it uses a nVidia graphics card that delivers fast graphics, but even the general processing performance was 10 to 15 percent faster than anything else.

If you're looking to buy a new computer and are considering a fast AMD chip (which you really should), then check out the company's Web site and find out which boards are approved. It may save you some grief in the future. At the moment AMD has the edge over Intel for raw performance and this sort of competition has to be good for the consumer.