The Athlon 64 chip from Advanced Micro Devices is coming out toward the end of September, and software that takes full advantage of the chip won't be that far behind.

Microsoft will release a version of Windows optimized for the chip in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of 2004, Marty Seyer, vice president and general manager of AMD’s microprocessor business unit, said in an interview this week.

The beta version of the operating system will become available in "late Q3," he added. That's slightly later than the midyear release of the beta Microsoft had promised earlier, but the estimated release schedule of the final version conforms to the expectations of most analysts.

Read the full story @ ZDNet.