Michael - More on the 433 MHz Celerons
Paul
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infoworld.com
HP, Gateway, others back new 433MHz Celeron
By James Niccolai InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 1:18 PM PT, Mar 22, 1999 Intel increased the speed of its fastest Celeron processor to 433MHz on Monday, as customers continue to benefit from the battle for the low end of the PC market between Intel and its chief rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, and Compaq are among the vendors who announced desktop PCs based on the new Celeron. The systems range in price from approximately $900 to $1,200.
Customers appear to be benefiting from the competition between Intel and AMD, as the two chip makers try to outdo each other to offer the fastest clock speeds for the lowest price.
The 433MHz Celeron was not due out for another three months, but Intel brought the release forward as part of an aggressive effort to win back sales from AMD in the low-end desktop PC market, said Ron Peck, director of value desktop marketing at Intel.
"We're tracking a market that seems to value a price-megahertz ratio above all else," Peck said. "It's a really competitive market and I think its going to stay that way."
By the middle of this year Intel will crank the speed of the Celeron up another notch, Peck said. The company also plans to introduce a new chipset, code-named Whitney, which includes an integrated graphics chip and is designed to help manufacturers further reduce the costs of low-end systems.
Like the other Celeron processors, the 433MHz version includes 128K of integrated Level 2 cache. In quantities of 1,000 it is priced at $169 in a Plastic Pin Grid Array packaging, and $177 in a Single Edge Processor Package, Intel said.
HP said it will offer the new Celeron in its Brio desktop PCs, aimed at small and midsize businesses. A Brio with a 433MHz Celeron, 64MB of SDRAM, an 8.4GB hard drive, a 32-speed CD-ROM drive with 16-bit sound, and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 is available now priced at around $1,139, HP said.
Dell is offering a Dimension PC, aimed at home and small business users, starting at $1,299. A typical system includes 32MB of SDRAM, a 6.4GB hard drive, a 15-inch monitor, an 8MB 3D AGP graphics card, a 32-speed CD ROM, an integrated 10/100 Ethernet card, Windows 98, and other software, Dell said.
Dell is also offering an OptiPlex G1, targeted at corporate users, priced starting at $1,148 with a monitor.
Intel Corp., in Santa Clara, Calif., can be reached at www.intel.com.
James Niccolai is a San Francisco correspondent for the IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate.
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