AMD Cuts Prices, Boosts Production

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp.’s biggest rival in the market for personal computer processors, cut prices on its chips by as much as 44% as it increased production. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company lowered the price on a 1-gigahertz Athlon chip to $612 from $990. The price on a 950-megahertz chip was lowered to $460 from $759 and on a 900MHz device to $350 from $589. Its 850MHz chip was cut to $282 from $507, while the price of an 800MHz chip was lowered to $215 from $359. Intel declined to comment on whether it would drop prices. Intel’s 1GHz Pentium III now costs $990. Advanced Micro also said its new 1.1GHz chip, which debuts in PCs in two weeks, will cost $853 each in lots of 1,000. The company’s shares rose $5.25 to close at $63 on the New York Stock Exchange.