Cheap chips drive low-cost assault

Intel's latest Celeron, Rise's low-cost chip push, and AMD's surge--despite its financial problems--all point to cheaper processors and, subsequently, cheaper computers.

New Celerons, systems coming Monday Another salvo in the processor price war will be launched on Monday when Intel releases the latest edition of its Celeron processor, a 433-MHz version. Start-up pushes chips for low-cost PCs Rise Technology continues to ratchet up its processor offerings for the low-cost PC market, further evidence that the most intense competition in the market is taking place in the low end. AMD's problems stem from factory shortage AMD has surged in the PC market of late, but lack of production capacity is hurting the chipmaker, which will take a financial loss for the first quarter and lay off about 300.