New products are introduced every day. But only a few manage to make a difference. Some, on the other hand, make their debut with a lot of promise, but fail to live up. In thissection we’ll look at the products that made a difference during the year that is now coming to an end and will continue to do so in the years ahead.

Products

AMD K7

Year after year, AMD had to play catch up with Intel. It had to keep its prices below that of Intel, and still wasn’t able to get user acceptance. Then came the K7. The K7 is the first processor from AMD that has gained user confidence as being at par (on quality as well as on performance) with processors from Intel. Intel’s fumble with its 1.13 GHz processor also helped the K7 on its way. Now, finally, there is a choice in the processor market. And for creating that choice, the AMD K7 finds its place in our list of products that made a difference this year.

Intel’s 810 chipset

First you buy the motherboard. And then you go and buy a handful of other cards to go into it—video, audio, network cards, etc. Motherboard manufacturers have in the past tried to build one or the other of these add-on cards on to the motherboard, but did not succeed, partly because they were not able to achieve significant cost reductions along the way. What the others were not able to do, Intel achieved by building video and audio support directly onto the chipset itself, in the form of the 810 chipset. Suddenly, computer vendors now have a way of reducing prices even further! Not only that, they can also develop stylish new PCs (see "A Matter of Style", page 91 in the issue). For achieving both, and changing the market forever, the credit goes to the 810 chipset from Intel.