News
450- and 500-MHz Pentium III Chips Are on the Way
- By Scott Bekker
- January 11, 1999
After swirling rumors about a release date for the much-anticipated Intel Pentium II follow up, Intel has issued a release date coinciding with the end of first quarter for the Pentium III, known by the code name Katmai.
The initial release will start with speeds of 450 and 500 MHz, but Seth Walker, a spokesperson for Intel, says goals for the second half of the year have the chip reaching clock speeds of 600 MHz. The higher speed will come from Intel's movement from the .25 chip size to .18, providing higher speeds with less heat. This new size also will spur the evolution of same-speed mobile computers, according to Walker. By the end of the year, mobile computing speeds will be in line with desktop speeds for the first time, and the smaller chip size will increase battery life.
PIII Xeon processors will follow the PIII release very shortly for servers and high-end workstations. Intel has been very busy since the New Year began. Last Monday, the company released new Celeron processors with speeds of 366 and 400 MHz. The next day spurred the release of the new Pentium II Xeon processors with 450-MHz and support for up to 2 MB of L2 cache. Walker says vendor shipments of computers with Pentium III chips are expected by the end of the quarter. -- Brian Ploskina, Assistant Editor
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.