Intel intros 550MHz Pentium III

Intel's 550MHz Pentium III processor is available now in volume, both in systems from major PC manufacturers, and in a boxed format from Intel product dealers and resellers.

The chip maker says the Pentium III's Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions Instruction Set have been a hit with software developers, resulting in numerous optimized Web sites and software applications becoming available.

The SIMD Extensions consist of 70 new instructions that dramatically enhance the performance of advanced imaging, 3-D, streaming audio, video, and speech recognition applications, according to the company.

PC makers ranging from Compaq Computer Corp. to Toshiba Corp. and Intergraph Corp. said they are using the 550MHz chips in a range of consumer and business computers.

The 550MHz Pentium III is 108 percent faster than the 450MHz Pentium II processor at on CPU intensive 3-D calculations, according to the manufacturer's tests Ziff-Davis' 3D WinBench 99 transform and lighting benchmark. Using Futuremark's MultimediaMark multimedia performance benchmark, the 550MHz chip is 53 percent faster than the 450MHz Pentium II, Intel says. For more information on Pentium III processor performance visit http://www.intel.com .

The 550MHz Pentium III uses the Intel 440BX AGPset. With 512 kB of L2 cache and in SECC2 package, the chip costs $744 per unit in 1,000 unit quantities.