The word is out now and although Intel doesn't like it, it's just a fact that the upcoming Pentium II CPU, formerly known as 'Klamath', is not living up to the expectations at all. This new processor is meant to be the successor of the Pentium Pro, but it's hardly any faster. Even compared to the recently released Pentium MMX it is not able to impress any of us performance freaks.

'Now what is the reason for releasing a product with this poor performance improvement ?', I hear lots of you ask. Well, I'm still wondering about the same question and I will try to tell you my very own opinion.

The most important change the Pentium II will confront us with is a new connection to the motherboard. Since the days of the 386 there used to be specially designed CPU sockets on the motherboard, where these square or rectangular little black chips in 'pin grid array' design used to fit in. A short time after the 486 was released, the motherboards started being equipped with so called 'Zero Insertion Force' or short ZIF sockets, which made it pretty easy to change the CPU. The Pentium as well as the Pentium Pro CPUs also plug in these ZIF sockets and hence there is no problem to change one CPU type of the same socket specification for another. After the P54C was released, first the Socket 5 and a little while later the Socket 7 specification was used for Pentium CPUs. This socket was not licensed by Intel and hence AMD and Cyrix just had to apply to the Socket 7 specification and you could swap an Intel Pentium CPU against an AMD or Cyrix one. The Socket 8 specification for the Pentium Pro should be the first one licensed by Intel, so that Intel's competitors couldn't just built chips to fit in this socket as well. However, although Intel doesn't want to believe this, the Socket 7 is still very popular and will probably stay as popular as well.

Before I will talk more about the bright future of the Socket 7, I would like to mention the latest idea of Intel. The upcoming Pentium II will for the first time NOT fit in a normal PGA CPU socket. Intel had a different idea this time and on the first look it seems very convenient to us users. The new idea is called 'Slot One' and is looking a little bit like an EISA slot. In this slot you can plug in the Pentium II, and if Intel's promises should be true, the next CPU type, the 'Deschutes', will fit into this socket as well.
Now since Intel obviously saw a need for a new CPU connection to the motherboard, we are certainly allowed to ask what great new features this new 'Slot One' is coming along with and especially what the benefits are over the old Socket technique. Well, as far as the Pentium II is concerned, there is no change whatsoever compared to the Socket 8 of the Pentium Pro. The Pentium II will also not run at a faster bus speed than 66 MHz and it doesn't have any other new performance or reliability enhancing features either. 'What's the beef with this socket then ?', we ask and why couldn't the Pentium II come with an adapter for Socket 8 ?? After all this would have helped all users with a Pentium Pro carrying board, to just swap the Pentium Pro for a Pentium II CPU, in case anybody would be crazy enough to do this. Well, I've been racking my brains, but I could find only one explanation and justification for the 'Slot One' at this stage. In short it's just called "MAKING $$$$"!!! The Slot One is licensed by Intel and is meant to be the connection for the next future Intel CPUs. AGP (advanced graphics port) is at the horizon and some other performance enhancements as well, and Intel wants to combine all these with one simple word - SLOT ONE. If other companies shouldn't fight against this, Intel will be able to push all the others from the market, because even though the Pentium II is no big improvement at all, everyone who wants AGP and high bus speeds will have to go for a board with Slot One and if you've once got one, you won't be able to use AMD or Cyrix CPUs in this board anymore.

Here a little list, how Intel is trying to push us towards the Pentium II and Slot One:

Intel is not planning to produce any Pentium or Pentium MMX CPUs at higher clock speed than 233 MHz, because it wants us to pull out of the Pentium systems. Intel is not planning to release any new chipset for Pentium CPUs after the 430TX chipset anymore. The 430TX chipset only supports 64 MB cacheable RAM and doesn't support ECC or even AGP. Anyone who wants a high performance system with these features will have to move to the Pentium II Intel doesn't seem to plan any higher clock speeds for Pentium Pro CPUs. Hence this CPU will become a performance dead end street. However it is rumored very strongly, that Intel will release a Pentium Pro Overdrive with MMX. The question is at which clock speed. Intel will also shortly release Pentium Pro CPUs with 1 MB L2 cache, which is very interesting for server system, but fairly neglectable for the average user, especially since it'll cost more than 2000 bucks.

Now what is standing against this threat and why is the future of the Socket 7 brighter than you may think?