Some CPU developments today, mostly confirmations of earlier stories. Intel is finally launching the Celeron 800 running on a 100mhz bus, unlike all the previous Celerons which were running on a 66mhz frontside bus. The newest Celeron costs $170 per 1000. Along with the Celeron Intel has also officially announced the Pentium4 1.3Ghz, as seen in the same story. This one will be $409, which is not that expensive for an Intel CPU and it is indeed meant to compete with the AMD processors.
Meanwhile, ZDNet is reporting that AMD and Transmeta are indeed working together on AMD's Sledgehammer. The Hammer is AMD's 64 bit processor which will compete with Intel's Itanium. Transmeta is making a simulator that behaves like the Sledgehammer in software, allowing software companies to already make Hammer compatible versions of their software while the CPU isn't due out in 2002. The Register already mentioned this in November, saying AMD & Transmeta were working together to get Microsoft to support the Hammer. In exchange for their simulator, Transmeta has a license on parts of the Sledgehammer design so they can use it themselves. In less positive AMD news, The Register has a story about the fact that AMD is still having problems with their notebook CPUS. Apparently they have working processors, but many tier one vendors have already decided to launch products based on Intel processors instead making it hard for AMD to make an impact when the mobile product does launch. Still will be cheaper than Intel though.