"We tested the 1.7GHz Pentium 4 and it clearly does bring performance to the party," Feibus said.
marketwatch.com
Intel unveils its P4 at 1.7GHz
Further price cuts expected
By Janet Haney, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 11:00 PM ET Apr 22, 2001
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- Intel continues to feel the need for speed in its Pentium 4 microprocessor family, unveiling Monday the fastest processor yet for desktop computers, running at a whopping 1.7 gigahertz.
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Intel's processor business -- the bread and butter of the chipmaker's livelihood -- appears to have stabilized, with normal seasonal patterns looming on the horizon. See Intel Q1 earnings story. That's good news for the industry, as well as investors, amid this tumultuous economic environment.
Still, does the marketplace need a processor as speedy as Intel's latest introduction?
"For the vast majority of us, you don't need this kind of performance," commented Mike Feibus, a principal analyst at Mercury Research.
The P4 at 1.7GHz marks Intel's (INTC: news, msgs, alerts) first completely new desktop processor design from Intel since the Pentium Pro processor, with P6 micro architecture, which was brought to the market in 1995.
Intel's newest processor push is said to enhance performance for processing video and audio, encouraging Internet technologies, as well as 3D graphics.
"We tested the 1.7GHz Pentium 4 and it clearly does bring performance to the party," Feibus said.
Additionally, the product is based on Intel's 850 chipset with Rambus dynamic random access memory (RDRAM), along with Intel's Netburst micro architecture, helping the processor to run at high speeds. A chipset is a group of chips designed to work together to execute a function.
"As consumer electronic devices go more digital, the amount of the performance that users are going to want with their PCs is only going to increase," commented Anand Chandrasekher, vice president of Intel's architecture group. "I don't see an end to the amount of performance that they'll need."
Intel intends to be at 2Ghz speeds in its P4 family in the second half of the year.
Price breaks
Intel said the P4 at 1.7GHz is now available and has a price tag of $352., in 1,000-unit quantities. Chandrasekher said, though, that price will stay the same through the rest of the summer.
The company also intends to lower prices on its P4 at 1.3GHz, 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz on April 29.
"Our goal has been to double our manufacturing ramp on Pentium 4's quarter to quarter," Chandrasekher pointed out. "We're getting much better yield as we produce more processors."
The Santa Clara, Calif. company slashed prices a week ago on its Pentium and Celeron processors. See related story.
Mercury Research data pegged Intel's preliminary total market share percentage for total PC processors shipments in the first quarter of 2001 at 78, while Advanced Micro Devices (AMD: news, msgs, alerts) was 21 percent. That compares to the fourth-quarter level of 81.5 percent for Intel and 17.1 percent for AMD.
On Friday, shares of Intel close down 6 cents to $32.43.
Janet Haney is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco. |
