SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jan 17, 2000 -- The AMD Athlon(TM) processor began the Year 2000 winning a prestigious award from one of the microprocessor industry's leading technical publications. MicroDesign Resources, publisher of the Microprocessor Report, announced today that the AMD Athlon processor beat out the Intel Pentium III(R) Coppermine and the Motorola PowerPC G4 to win the publication's first ever Analyst's Choice Award for Best PC Processor.

With 35 awards in hand since the product was launched in August 1999, the AMD Athlon processor is also the first AMD microprocessor to win multiple awards as a top-performing workstation processor.

"The AMD Athlon processor continues to gain acceptance from computer manufacturers, businesses and end-users, as well as the trade press and analysts who cover the industry," said Larry Hollatz, group vice president of the Computation Products Group at AMD. "We are grateful to MicroDesign Resources for recognizing the AMD Athlon processors superior engineering design and performance. These awards come from a variety of publications around the globe, testifying to the AMD Athlon processor's worldwide appeal."

The Analyst's Choice Awards recognize excellence in microprocessor technology innovation, design and implementation, and are chosen by Microprocessor Report's team of respected, independent analysts. The Microprocessor Report is published by MicroDesign Resources, based in Sunnyvale, California.

Equipped with a superscalar floating point engine and high-bandwidth, 200MHz system bus, the AMD Athlon processor's seventh-generation microarchitecture enables it to achieve superior performance levels and make it particularly appealing for workstations. Several workstation publications that tested the AMD Athlon processor gave it -- or systems based on the processor -- awards, including: Best Product of 1999, Windows NT Systems (January 2000); All-Star Award, Cadalyst (December 1999); Wired for 3D Editors' Choice, 3D Magazine (January 2000); and Cadalyst Labs 5-Star (out of a possible 5 stars) Highly Recommended Workstation: Polywell 800K7-6501 (with an AMD Athlon 650 MHz processor), Sys Performance 600A (AMD Athlon 600 MHz processor), and XI Computer 650K MTower SP (AMD Athlon 650 MHz processor).