AMD Takes Fight to Intel

SAN FRANCISCO -- It's showtime for Advanced Micro Devices(AMD).

Reeling from an outpouring of red ink and a debilitating mountain of debt, AMD unveiled its best hope for any near-term salvation: the long-awaited Barcelona microprocessor.

The chip is AMD's first major processor upgrade in years, and will finally give AMD a quad-core chip, nearly a year after rival Intel(INTC) introduced its quad core Xeon chip.

The question now is whether Barcelona will prove to be too little, too late.

Shares of AMD were up 13 cents, or 1%, to $12.74 in midday trading Monday. Intel shares were up 16 cents to $25.63.

AMD will fete its new chip at the San Francisco campus of Lucasfilm on Monday evening, an event AMD has billed as "the most anticipated premiere of 2007."

But launch party hyperbole notwithstanding, the release of Barcelona means the propaganda war of test results and specifications waged by both AMD and Intel for several months will now give way to real-world achievements.

"The customers get the final say, so watch the OEMs [original equipment manufacturers]," says chip analyst David Kanter of Real World Technologies. "That's what ultimately tells the tale."

According to AMD, about 50 different server models from various OEMs will begin shipping with Barcelona Monday, and the number is expected to increase through the end of the year.