The GTL bus is patented by Intel. Whoever wants to develop hardware for it, is at Intels mercy. Channel that started the downfall of this dynasty in the PC arena. Market Economy Somewhat important for the success of new processors is their price. Here AMD and DEC really splash out.
System administrators dread nothing more than changing a board.
DEC offers the Alpha 21164PC for an unusually low price. But DEC definitely wants to stay competitive, so the complete system will settle below 2600 Dollars. Cyrix has not talked about M2 prices yet. Under no circumstances they want to repeat the mistake made with the c6x86 though and enter the race with much too high prices. Hare and Tortoise AMD delivered a K6-233 Revision 1 including a reference system to us for testing.