more on 1998 Intel products
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Intel To Rev Pentium II Speeds
(11/14/97; 9:10 a.m. EST)
By Kelly Spang, Computer Reseller News
By the third quarter 1998, Pentium II speeds will reach
450 MHz while the Pentium Pro and Pentium with
MMX processors will fade away, sources said.
From the start of the new year, Intel will continue to
push the speeds of its Pentium II processors for Slot 1
and will introduce its Slot 2 processors by the third
quarter.
The Slot 2 Pentium II processors speeds will start at
400 MHz in the third quarter and move up to 450
MHz by the fourth quarter, according to industry
sources. The Slot 2 processor will be based on a
100-MHz system bus with the NX chip set.
Workstation system prices based on the 400-MHz
Slot 2 Pentium II to reach or exceed $12,000, sources
said.
In comparison, a workstation based on the 400-MHz
Slot 1 Pentium II processor, slated for introduction in
the second quarter 1998, is expected to cost $9,000
to $12,000, sources said.
A 350-MHz Slot 1 Pentium II processors is also
expected to be introduced in the second quarter. For
the first quarter, Intel will unveil its 333-MHz Slot 1
Pentium II processor running on the 66-MHz system
bus.
For the desktop, systems based on the 400-MHz Slot
1 Pentium II with the BX chip set are expected to
range in price around $3,500, sources said.
"Intel is beginning the transition period to Slot 2 to
target workstations," sources said. Once Slot 2 is in
the market, a large price difference between Slot 2 and
Slot 1 processors should help VARs differentiate
products, the source said.
Intel officials declined comment on pricing and product
delivery schedule. However, they confirmed that these
processors would appear throughout 1998.
Slot 1 will continue as the form factor for desktop
systems and entry-level workstations, offering support
for up to dual-processors, according to Intel's
roadmap. System bus speed is either 66 MHz with the
LX chip set or 100 MHz with the BX chip set.
The BX chip set is expected to be announced in the
second quarter 1998.
Slot 2 is targeted to high-end servers and workstations
and will support the 100-MHz system bus from the
processor rollout. Slot 2 supports multiprocessing and
a larger L2 cache size, according to Intel's road map.
By the second half of 1998, the 400-MHz Slot 2
Pentium II processors will incorporate 1 megabyte of
cache, sources said.
An additional difference between Slot 1 and Slot 2 is
the Slot 2 enables the cache to run at full processor
speeds while Slot 1 allows cache to run at half the
processor clock speed. For example, with a 300-MHz
Pentium II Slot 1, the L2 cache bus runs at 150 MHz,
while with a 400-MHz Pentium II Slot 2, the L2 cache
bus will run at 400 MHz.
Into 1998, Intel, in Santa Clara, Calif., will drop
several processors off its road map both for Pentium II
and for older class processors.
By the first quarter of 1998, the Pentium Pro 200
MHz with 256 kilobytes of Level 2 cache is no longer
on Intel's road map. By the end of the first quarter, the
Pentium with MMX 166 MHz drops off the road map
as well.
The Pentium II 266-MHz Slot 1 processors drops off
the road map in the fourth quarter, a quarter after a
version without any L2 cache is introduced. The
Pentium II 233 MHz is not on the Intel road map after
the first half of the year, sources said.
By the second half of 1998, the Pentium 200 and 233
MHz with MMX technology are not on the road map
as well as the Pentium Pro 200 with 512 KB of cache. |
