Advanced Micro Devices Inc has designed a low-cost personal computer, based around its K6 microprocessor, which it hopes that OEM manufacturers will use as the basis for sub-$1000 machines. Jacob Rice, a spokesperson for AMD, said that the company had concentrated on designing a PC with minimal features for the low- end of the market.
The reference design, dubbed the Legacy Free PC, uses Silicon Integrated System Corp’s 530 chipset with a socket 7 connection for the CPU. The SIS chipset includes an integrated graphics accelerator and supports a software modem. The design has a curved body and a CD-ROM drive in the front. The system has five USB ports and a modem and Ethernet connection but no ‘legacy’ ports, such as the PCI, ISA and PS/2 interconnects.
According to Rice, the price of a PC based around the design could be below $800, although he said this would be up to the OEM. According to Nikkei Byte, a major Korean PC manufacturer plans to start shipping machines based on the design by the end of the month.
