Raleigh (NC) - AMD scored another design win today with Lenovo announcing that it will build Athlon 64 and Sempron processors into a business-targeted desktop PC: After the J series for home users, the Thinkcentre A60 series is the second model to offer AMD's CPUs as an alternative to Intel processors.

Lenovo offers the Thinkcentre as a carryover model from IBM's lineup in mini-tower and small-desktop form factors. So far, the series has been available only with Intel's Celeron D, Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors in 39 configurations of "A50", "A51" and "A52" models and prices ranging from $400 to $1190. With the arrival of the A60, AMD processors are available in the Thinkcentre series for the first time.

According to a press release, Lenovo will be offering socket AM2-based Sempron, Athlon 64 and dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processors for the A-series, which is marketed towards large enterprise and mid-market customers.

"Customers want stable solutions and innovative technologies that help them reduce costs," said Thomas Tobul, executive director for global desktop marketing at Lenovo. "Our new Thinkcentre A60 with AMD processors, coupled with our Thinkvantage Technologies, expands the range of flexible and innovative solutions available to our customers through the Thinkcentre lineup."

The computers will be available with up to 1 TB of hard drive storage space and Nvidia Geforce 6100 graphics chipsets. Pricing for the systems will start at $379, undercutting the currently cheapest Celeron A50 by $20. Athlon 64-based A60 systems are available from $519, Lenovo said.

At the time of this writing, Lenovo's website had not been updated with information about available A60 models.

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