After about two years on the market, Advanced Micro Devices' budget Duron processor is being retired--and consumers may see some PC bargains disappear along with it.
AMD expects to stop producing Duron by 2003, the company says. The news came along with the announcement this week of its Opteron chip. For AMD, it's apparently an economic decision, but reaction is mixed among processor gurus. Most analysts consider Duron a strong product caught in the crossfire of AMD's price wars with Intel, and say its demise could boost prices on AMD-based value PCs.
"The consumer may not have always recognized it, but the Duron was an incredible value," says Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.
MicroDesign Resources analyst Kevin Krewell agrees. "You definitely got more bang for your buck with a Duron over a Celeron," he says. Celeron is Intel's budget processor. Because it was based on the strong Athlon core--which continues to compete well with Intel's Pentium 4--Duron was an excellent performer, says McCarron.
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