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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Jordan who wrote (10508)	2/15/2000 6:20:00 PM
From: Feathered Propeller	Respond to of 14778

Somehow I always feel as if I am chasing my own tail when this happens... Intel Unveils Fastest Computer Chip By Cliff Edwards AP Technology Writer Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2000; 5:02 p.m. EST washingtonpost.com PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Intel Corp. took the wraps off the world's fastest computer chip on Tuesday, running at 1.5 gigahertz, in its latest bet that consumers and businesses increasingly will feel the need for speed. The new chip, code-named "Willamette," was one of a flurry of announcements from the twice-yearly Intel Developers Forum, in which the world's largest chip maker shows new products in a bid to get engineers to develop software for them. Intel has been locked in a race with its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., to produce the fastest chip. Willamette, which goes on sale this fall, would far outpace the processing power of AMD's recently announced Athlon chip running at 1 gigahertz, or 1 billion bits of information per second. Intel's fastest chip being sold today is a Pentium III running at 800 megahertz, slightly more than half as fast. Intel's processors provide the brainpower for about 90 percent of the world's computers. Critics say the company's latest chips have far more processing power than the average consumer needs, but Intel executives contended Tuesday the increasing popularity of the Internet ? for everything from video streaming to electronic commerce to realistic three-dimension games ? will require greater computing power. "Performance does matter on the Internet. It does today and it will in the future," said Pat Gelsinger, vice president of Intel's Desktop Products Group. The company demonstrated Willamette with a computer space game that processed complex mathematical movements on the fly and featured graphics showing crystal-clear pools of water and greater detail than existing computer games. The announcements come amid an aggressive push by the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company to transform itself from a maker of mainly PC chips to a company selling a broad variety of products that power any device that connects to the Internet. That includes phones, powerful business computers and networking equipment. Intel chairman Andrew S. Grove, in a keynote speech to 2,500 attendees of the three-day conference, noted demands placed on companies conducting business on the Internet are increasing by "the power of ten," requiring greater processing power in turn. The company hopes to address that need with Willamette and Itanium, a powerful processor it unveiled last year. It begins shipping in late summer. Some analysts say consumers should wait until software developers catch up with chipmakers before spending additional money on computers using such high-end chips as Willamette. "We're seeing partly how out of step Intel is with what people want, which is affordability, more stability and reliability with their computers," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with research firm Giga Information Group. But Gelsinger noted that internal company research had found that computers running the business-oriented *operating system Windows 2000, set for release on Thursday, would require about 250 more megahertz of power to deliver the same level of processing performance as current desktops.* And to address criticisms about high costs to average consumers, Intel on Tuesday also gave a demonstration of a new Celeron chip code-named "Timna," aimed at the lower-end, sub-$1,000 PC market. That chip would run at speeds of at least 700 megahertz and begin shipping in the second half of the year, said Albert Yu, Intel's senior vice president of the Microprocessor Products Group. The company also plans to ship later this year a chip for laptop computers that runs at 850 megahertz when plugged in, and at a lower frequency when on battery. ¸ Copyright 2000 The Associated Press