AMD is staging its big comeback with the launch of the Athlon 64. In the neck-and-neck race for the fastest processor around, Intel has had the lead for a good while but the next year almost certainly belongs to AMD. Intel has its work cut out if it even wants to stay close to the front.

It's worth knowing a little history on this. Although the K6 was a lovely little chip, nobody really took AMD seriously on the performance front until the launch of the original Athlon. The fact that the Athlon was available at higher clockspeeds than Intel's best Pentium III offerings redefined AMD in the eyes of the industry. Intel had a particularly rough ride at the launch time of the Pentium IV, a chip which seemed a backward step in terms of performance, the Pentium III being much faster at the same clockspeed. AMD looked to be the front runner.

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