Posted 18/10/99 5:43pm by Pete Sherriff (the Register)
Intel 1100MHz 'Athlon killer' to launch in December
Intel knows in its heart that Coppermine just can't cut it in the race against Athlon, so
Chipzilla has a little surprise up its sleeve - the next generation of IA32 processor,
codenamed Willamette, could be here a staggering nine months early.
US sources say the chip will have a paper launch at the end of December, with
product in the shops two months later, although if AMD keeps up the pressure it could
be even sooner. Presumably this two month gap is to enable OEMs to shift
bucketloads of Coppermine systems before they're rendered unsaleable by the new
super chip.
Coppermine arrives next week, but still uses the venerable P6 core that first saw the
light of day in the Pentium Pro, albeit at a dinky 0.18 micron process, coupled with on
die level 2 cache. It'll be faster than existing Pentium IIIs, but not earth-shatteringly so.
Now with Athlon starting to win the hearts and minds battle, and still wincing from the
Camino chipset cockup, the chip behemoth - still smarting from Chimpzilla's new
found ability to deliver silicon rather than hot air - desperately needs to do something
impressive - and fast.
Intel's been quietly shipping 0.18 micron mobile processors for the best part of six
months, but even so, bringing Willamette so far forward is pretty impressive stuff.
The entirely new 0.18 micron Willamette was originally scheduled to arrive around Q3
2000 at 1100MHz with more than 1MB integrated level 2 cache and Intel performance
estimates say it will score around 50 on Winstone98 and 43 on SpecInt95.
Although following the FTC investigation, Chipzilla is supposedly under strict orders to
avoid using 'aggressive' terminology in internal communications, it is reported that
Willamette is being referred to as 'The Athlon Killer' by Intel insiders. Presumably this
is toned down in written communication to 'Cute, cuddly and totally unthreatening'. © |
