In early October last year, for example, Intel announced the release of its Coppermine chip, the newest generation of Pentium IIIs. At the time of the announcement, Intel was offering a top clock speed of 700 MHz.
Smaller lines allow chips to reach higher speeds while using less power.
Among other things, Athlon chips made in Dresden use copper connections between transistors instead of aluminum, which is worth about a 10 percent performance improvement. The Athlon chips include a 200 MHz system bus and 512 KB of high speed level-two memory. Intel countered in December by releasing an 800 MHz Pentium III a couple months earlier than originally planned. Meanwhile, AMD announced its 800 MHz Athlon in early January. Earlier, the company had demonstrated 900 MHz chips that did not need any special cooling equipment.