Intel stages major P3 fest

Intel has introduced nine new Pentium III chips - ranging from 500MHz to a top-end of 733MHz.

A slew of PC makers joined the festvities, announcing new Pentium III-based systems with prices starting at about $1,200.

The new chips all include 256 kB of integrated Level 2 cache. The 500MHz, 550MHz, 650MHz and 700MHz chips support a 100MHz system bus only. The 667MHz and 733MHz chips support only a 133MHz bus. The 533MHz and 600MHz processors support either bus speed.

Those chips supporting a 100MHz system bus are designed to be used with Intel's current 440BX chip set. Chips supporting a 133MHz bus can be used with an 810E chipset or Intel's delayed 820 chip set for high performance PCs, when it becomes available.

Hewlett-Packard, IBM and several other PC vendors will also use VIA Technologies' Apollo PRO 133 chip set, which supports a 133MHz bus and 133MHz SDRAM, with the new Pentium III chips.

The onslaught of new Pentiums - some of which appear to compete with previously released Pentium III chips running at similar speeds - may be confusing to some consumers, according to the story at www.zdnn.com .