Moving swiftly on to the 'mainstream' (so Intel(r) likes to bracket) end user, we leave the Celeron(tm)s behind. With the various difficulties in taking the Intel(r) Camino chip set and the Rambus DRAMs it supports up to the required speeds to accommodate a 133MHz system bus, delays to the rollout of PCs based upon the higher speed Rambus technology will probably occur. Even though a 600MHz version of Direct Rambus DRAMs could offer twice as much bandwidth as current PC 100 SDRAM, which should trickle down to boost performance of 3D games, Intel(r) only projects 300MHz and 400Mhz RDRAM being introduced during the second half of the year. Sources close to Sharky Extreme hinted that Intel(r) should be able to have Pentium(r) IIIs supporting 133MHz FSB with a 533MHz CPU, thus the Pentium(r) II 350Mhz will be phased out after Q1, the 400MHz will be gone by mid year and the 450Mhz falls off the Business Desktop roadmap by the end of Q3. To help spur Pentium(r) III sales, Intel(r) has lowered the introduction pricing for the 500MHz and decreased the price difference between the Pentium(r) II and the 450MHz Pentium(r) III.

The Pentium(r) III (Katmai), which will be officially unveiled in San Jose on February 17th, will be released without any other glitches. Even though the support for Katmai enabled games is currently about as thin as a stick insect on a diet, the Pentium(r) III, as most of you know, is to be launched at 450Mhz and 500MHz. The 100MHz FSB versions of the Pentium(r) III (450Mhz and 500Mhz) will most likely fizzle out by the beginning of 2000. But better news comes in the shape of Intel(r)'s plans to introduce a Pentium(r) III 600MHz CPU (dubbed Coppermine) by the end of Q3 and a 600+MHz by the yearend, which should push the speed barrier even further, with SIMD and SSE instructions to boot. The introduction of Coppermine also heralds the transition from .25micron to .18micron.

For those of you that are either interested in breaking speed limits or are fans of Chuck Yeager, then you'll be totally satisfied to know that 700MHz looks to be well on the cards for the year 2000. Unfortunately the 700MHz target probably won't be attained in the first half of 2000 though. We were told that the second half of 2000 was a much more realistic target. The Intel(r) 820 chipset (set for a late Q2 intro) will be specifically designed for use with both Pentium(r) III Katmai and Coppermine CPUs to prolong the life of the 820 platform.