AMD boxed out by Intel price cut?

Intel is refusing to reveal details on how it managed to win the role of primary chip supplier for Microsoft's X-Box.

Announced Friday at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., the new gaming console, due out in the third quarter of 2001, will feature Intel's 600MHz PIII, along with a 300MHz graphics chip co-designed by Microsoft and Nvidia. Analysts speculate the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker snatched the business from rival AMD shortly before its release with a drastic, eleventh-hour price cut.

An AMD spokesman said his company was "not prepared to get into a sort of scorched-earth price war with Intel to get [Microsoft's] business."

More details are available at www.zdnn.com.