Scumbria - I think the Pentium III PCs announced today outnumber the K63's by a WIDE margin.
What do you think?
Paul
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zdnet.com
Pentium III yields slew of PCs, workstations, servers By John G. Spooner and Carmen Nobel
Now that Intel Corp. has officially taken the wraps off its new Pentium III, a slew of PC, workstation and server vendors have announced machines based on the 450MHz and 500MHz processor.
Dell Computer Corp., Gateway Inc., IBM, Compaq Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., among others, will begin selling their new Pentium III-based machines on Friday.
According to Intel, the 500MHz Pentium III, which includes 70 new SIMD (single-instruction, multiple-data) instructions to speed multimedia processing as well as a revised floating point architecture, performs about 8 percent faster than a 450MHz Pentium II, according to the ZD Winbench 99 test.
However, Pentium IIIs will perform much better than Pentium IIs on applications, such as speech recognition, that have been optimized to take advantage of the new instructions, Intel officials said.
When measured by the ZD Winbench 99 Transfrom and Lighting test, a benchmark measuring graphics performance, a 450MHz Pentium III performed 75 percent faster than a 450MHz Pentium II.
Hardware based on the new chips will be priced at about $1,500 for PCs and $2,000 for workstations. Servers will start at just over $2,000.
Dell Computer
Dell, of Round Rock, Texas, will offer the Pentium III in several Dimension and Optiplex desktop PC models. An Optiplex GX1, for example, configured with a 450MHz Pentium III, 64MB of synchronous dynamic RAM, a 6.4GB hard drive and a 17-inch monitor, will cost about $1,725. Dell will also offer Pentium IIIs in its Precision 210 and 410 workstations starting at about $1,997.
In addition, Dell introduced the Pentium IIIs to its PowerEdge 1300, 2300, 4300 and 4350 servers, and doubled the memory capacity of its PowerEdge 2300 and 4300 servers from 1 to 2 gigabytes, according to officials. The PowerEdge 1300 starts at $1,699, the 2300 starts at $2,099, the 4300 starts at $5,395, and the 4350 starts at $5,399.
Gateway
Gateway, of North Sioux City, S.D., will begin shipping several new Pentium III-based desktop systems aimed at business and consumer users. Its new business-oriented E-4200 desktop, starting at about $1,999 with the 500MHz Pentium III, features 128MB of RAM, a 8.4GB hard drive and a 17-inch EV700 monitor. E-4200 customers can choose between different chassis and networking hardware.
The company will also offer the chip in its E-5200 workstation, starting at $3,599, for a 500MHz machine with 128MB of RAM, a 9GB SCSI hard drive and a 19-inch VX900 monitor. New Pentium III-based servers in Gateway's ALR 7200 and 8200 series will start at $2497.
Hewlett-Packard
HP, meanwhile, announced that its new Vectra VEi 8 and VLi 8 and Brio BEX PCs, announced earlier this month, will support the Pentium III and start at about $2,499 for the Vectras and $1,649 for the Brios. In addition, the Palo Alto, Calif., company introduced a new Kayak XK-s workstation based on the 500MHz chip and with an ELSA Gloria Synergy Plus graphics card, priced at $3,460.
HP also plans to support the 500MHz chip on its NetServer line, including the LPR ($3,581), LC-3 ($3,032) and LH-3 ($5,291). At the same time, the company is announcing several new features for the NetServers, all of which are due by May. One-button disaster recovery will enable administrators to back up and restore data from a tape drive to a server in one step. Top Tools Phone Home features enable the server to call the HP response center automatically when something goes awry.
Finally, HP is adding support for Novell NetWare to its ManageX software and is considering support for Linux, officials said.
NEC, IBM, Compaq and Micron
NEC Computer Systems Division, in Mountain View, Calif., has released new desktops and servers based on the Pentium III. Its PowerMate8100, configured with a 450MHz chip, 64MB of RAM and an 8.4GB hard drive, will start at $1,799. A new Express 5800 MC2400 server with a single 450MHZ Pentium III, 64MB RAM and 4GB SCSI hard drive will start at about $2,207.
IBM will offer the processor in its PC 300GL and PC 300PL desktop lines -- starting at $1,499 and $1,675, respectively, for machines configured with the 450MHz chip. The Armonk, N.Y., company will also offer IntelliStation Pro workstations with the 450MHz chip starting at $2,155.
As for servers, IBM is holding off on announcing until March 17, which is when the 450MHz and 500MHz Pentium III Xeon chip will launch, sources said. At that time, IBM will announce Pentium III support for its Netfinity 3000, 5000 and 5500 servers. The company will also announce several changes to its 5500 line, officials said.
Compaq, of Houston, will offer new Deskpro PCs with the Pentium III starting at $1,769 with a monitor. The company is also adding the chip to most of the servers in its Proliant server line, along with new management software, said officials.
Micron Electronics Inc., of Nampa, Idaho, announced the new ClientPro Cs, a desktop line based on the Pentium III. A model configured with the 500MHz chip, 128MB of SDRAM, an 8.4GB hard drive and a 17-inch monitor will start at $2,199.
Intel is expected to ship a 550MHz Pentium III in the second quarter. Dell, Compaq and IBM said they will support the chip when it arrives.
Intel's announcement of the 450MHz and 500MHz Pentium III Xeon on March 17 should prompt another flurry of workstation and server announcements. A 550MHz Pentium III Xeon will follow.
Intel can be reached at www.intel.com. Dell is at www.dell.com. Gateway is at www.gateway.com. HP is at www.hp.com. IBM is at www.ibm.com. Compaq is at www.compaq.com. NEC is at www.necnow.com. Micron is at www.micronpc.com. |
