As well as the clock-tripled 80486 DX4, Intel Corp in March is planning to add clock-doubled versions of the 25MHz and 33MHz 80486SX parts, PC Week reports, but Advanced Micro Devices Inc has a rather more interesting property on the stocks. The performance of Windows remains a problem, and Intel could do a vast army of users a favour by doing an 80486 in which a graphics co-processor replaces the on-chip maths co-processor, and suggested it was something Cyrix Corp or Advanced Micro should consider seriously (CI No 2,302). It turns out that Advanced Micro has been thinking along the same lines, and that its clean-room answer to Pentium, code-named the K5, will be optimised for running Windows, Electronic News reports. No indication of when that will be ready, but clock-tripled Am486s are set for around July.Meantime Cyrix Corp has won a minor victory over Intel with a court ruling that Intel has no right to charge Cyrix customers a licensing fee for using Cyrix Cx486s, because Intel’s patents at issue are covered by the company’s patent cross-licensing agreement with SGS-Thomson Microelectronics BV, which fabricates the chips for Cyrix. Intel had claimed that some elements of the licensing agreement were not covered under the patent and wanted royalties for use of the chips made by SGS-Thomson. Manufacturers that use Cyrix iAPX-86 clones in personal computers include Zeos International Ltd, Austin Computer Corp and CompuAdd Computer Corp.
