Conflicting reports on Coppermine 733 and Athlon 750 rollout
New chips on parade
By Om Malik
forbes.com
NEW YORK. 11:59 AM EDT-A slew of new chips
from Intel Corp. (nasdaq: INTC) and ATI
Technologies (nasdaq: ATYT) are likely to hit the
shelves Monday, as PC-makers scramble to
introduce new computer systems.
Leading the charge will be Intel Corp., which is
going to introduce its Coppermine line of
Pentium-III chips. As reported by Forbes.com on
Oct. 4, these chips made on a 0.18 micron
manufacturing technology are likely to put Intel
on an even footing with its traditional rival
Advanced Micro Devices' (nyse: AMD)
super-speedy Athlon chips.
Intel is expected to roll out a 733- and 667-MHz
version of its Pentium III chip later this year.
These new versions of Pentium III chip use a
100-MHz system bus, and 256KB on-die full-speed
L2 Cache. In total about nine new versions of
Pentium III are due out this fourth quarter.
While Intel might have the speed crown for the
moment, AMD is expected to strike back very
shortly. The company recently started production
in its state-of-the-art chip-manufacturing facility
in Dresden, Germany. AMD will soon announce the
750-MHz version of its chip, only to be followed
by 800 MHz versions in November 1999.
Accompanying the new Pentiums would be a new
chipset, Caramel 840, which uses
Rambus-technology. The chipsets will likely be
sold for $250 a piece and have none of the
technical issues being faced by the ill-fated
Camino 820 chipset.
The Caramel launch is going to restore some faith
in the ailing Rambus (nasdaq: RMBS), which has
been on the ropes ever since Intel decided to
delay the launch of Camino on Sept. 27.
Intel is working to resolve the resolve platform
validation issues plaguing the 820 chipset.
Sources familiar with Intel say that a reworked
Camino 820 design with two-slot module
implementation is likely to ship in two weeks.
Intel is not the only company looking to launch
new chips next week. ATI Technologies of
Ontario, Canada is likely to take the covers off its
RAGE Mobility 128 chip.
Sources familiar with the company say that this
could be the world's fastest 2D, 3D and
multimedia graphics accelerator for notebooks and
is 60% faster than anything else out there in the
market. ATI has been feeling some heat from S3
(nasdaq: SIII), which has become a strong player
in the notebook graphics chip market. The RAGE
Mobility 128 chip has features such as consumer
quality DVD, a TV encoder and support for
simultaneous use of two LCD panels (notebook
and external). |
