Compaq to Unveil AMD Chip Computers

NEW YORK —  Compaq Computer Corp. today is expected to unveil new models in its year-old Presario consumer line and base them on chips made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. rather than market leader Intel Corp.

This is the first time a major manufacturer has used a chip maker besides Intel for an entire product line. While planned for some time, it is being announced just after Compaq Chief Executive Eckhard Pfeiffer publicly criticized Intel at an industry conference in Spain.

By relying on AMD 486 microprocessors rather than the newer and more expensive Intel Pentium chip, Compaq is betting consumers are more interested in saving money than having leading-edge technology in their machines. It will spend tens of millions of dollars on TV ads this fall, competing with Intel’s ads for Pentium.

“The big issue is practical functionality,” said Mark Vena, brand manager for Presario products, saying most consumers don’t require Pentium power, now chiefly used for graphics and video. Compaq announced in February it had signed AMD as a second supplier of microprocessors, the “brain” of a personal computer. The company said it needed another large supplier because of its growth.

Analysts had expected Compaq would use AMD chips in the consumer PCs. AST Research is expected to soon bring out consumer models based on chips by Cyrix, another Intel clone company.

Compaq plans to promote the new Presario models as “home information centers” since each model has a built-in speaker phone and individual voice mailboxes. For $200 more, they can be equipped with a TV tuner.

Each model also has a CD-ROM drive, stereo speakers and a modem.