A Year Ago Today: Cyrix plays down overheating

Cyrix today today hit back at suggestions that it has hit rocky ground with its flagship line of 6x86 processors, after some reports suggested that it has experienced overheating problems caused by clocking the chips too high.

"The 6x86 is a fast part and it does draw more heat than the Pentium," said Paul Norman, Cyrix regional manager for central Europe. "We bundle it with a heat-sink and fan and have had no problems, but unfortunately people buy it on the grey market and get something like a 75MHz Pentium fan that doesn't let it run cool enough. [The grey market] probably affects Intel more than it does us; it's one of those things that you'll never be able to overcome."

Norman also said that Cyrix will next month unveil a big US PC brand-name to endorse the 6x86, lending the part kudos with corporate buyers. That name is expected to be AST which plans a line of low-priced Cyrix-based systems, according to sources. In Europe, the 6x86 can already boast some impressive badges, including the UK's Elonex and Germany's Actebis, plus Contech and Schadt, the two firms that have picked up many of the stores formerly owned by Escom in Germany.

Systems based on the 200MHz 6x86 will proliferate with the release of motherboards made by Taiwan's FIC and Asustek in time for the Christmas buying season, Norman said. The choice has so far been limited to DFI, the only board maker to offer the 75MHz bus required by the 200MHz chip.