This morning, Intel once again took the lead in the processor race against rival AMD. With the release of the 733 MHz Pentium III a few weeks ago, it looked like Intel was about to close out 1999 with the fastest PC processor. However, a few weeks later, AMD responded by shipping its 750MHz Athlon earlier than expected. Intel’s counterattack came this morning with the announcement of the 750 and 800MHz versions of its Pentium III processor, which was not expected to launch this year. The P3-750 was originally due to be delivered in the first week of January, while the P3-800 was scheduled to ship in February.
“Intel’s Pentium III processor is the fastest microprocessor in the desktop PC market segment,” said Intel Vice President Paul Otellini. “We are committed to delivering higher performance processors and platform solutions to our customers.”
Built on a 0.18 micron process with a 100 MHz front bus and 256 kb of high-speed L2 cache, these new processors share the same innards as previous Coppermines. The 750 MHz processor costs $803 in quantities of 1,000, while the 800 costs $851 in the same quantities. Certain system integrators currently stock systems based on these two processors. Intel expects to increase production in January.
