NEWS BRIEFS
Intel Corp. on Wednesday turned up the juice on Celeron-based PCs. The chip maker, in time for this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, introduced a new 800MHz Celeron chip for low-cost PCs.
The new chip is the first Celeron to offer a 100MHz front side bus. The faster bus, Intel says, will provide a moderate performance bump for low-cost PCs.
When compared with the current 766MHz Celeron, which sports a 66MHz bus, the total performance improvement for the new 800MHz chip and 100MHz bus is up to 20 percent, Intel officials said. Processor clock speed upgrades alone usually account for performance increases ranging from about 7 percent to 9 percent. The front-side bus offers a data pathway between the processor and system components, such as memory.
PCs based on the new 800MHz chip will be announced at or around the Consumer Electronics Show, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) officials said.
“Intel is updating the hardware ingredients of value PCs to bring more performance and capabilities to consumers in 2001,” said Jeff McCrea, director of Intel Desktop Platform Marketing, in a prepared statement.
Additionally, Intel announced a new version of its low-cost Intel 810 chip set. The new chip set, dubbed 810E2, includes Intel’s updated input/output controller hub, otherwise known as ICH2.
For consumers, ICH2’s most important feature will be likely be the addition of two more Universal Serial Bus ports, for a total of four ports. Current PCs based on the 810E chip set offer only two USB ports.
The new 800MHz chip will cost $170 in 1,000-unit quantities.
Intel, as expected, has begun shipping its 1.3GHz Pentium 4 chip. The new chip, on sale by PC makers such as Dell Computer Corp., is aimed at bringing Pentium 4 PC prices into the mainstream market.
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