First time features for upgraded Pentium III processors

Intel has unveiled 15 upgraded versions of its flagship Pentium III processor, aiming to fight rivals at both the low and high ends of the market, such as AMD and Sun Microelectronics.

The chip giant's latest line up - until now going by the Coppermine code-name - for the first time features Pentium IIIs for the mobile market, as well as faster desktop processors, in addition to workstation and server offerings running under the Xeon brand name.

Although Intel missed its original September release date, it has now made the transition to 0.18-micron manufacturing technology. This means the circuitry is smaller than before, allowing processors to be faster and less power hungry (an important consideration for notebook computers), at equivalent clock speeds.

While the mobile PIIIs debut at 500, 450 and 400MHz, desktop PCs from the likes of Compaq, Dell, IBM, HP and others will now be offered with clock speeds of 733, 700, 667, 650, 600, 550 and 533MHz. The last improvements (600MHz maximum speed) were announced at the start of August.

In addition, Intel has unveiled Pentium III Xeon processors at 733, 677 and 600MHz. They will work with the Intel 840 chipset with 133MHz front side bus, 64bit PCI support, and technology from Rambus allowing improved memory performance. These high-end chips feature integrated cache to boost performance.

Gordon Graylish, Intel director of product marketing, EMEA, said: "Our aggressive transition to 0.18-micron technology means we have new processors with significantly higher performance for every segment of computing."

However, Sun Microsystems' chips arm, designer of the UltraSPARC processor, was quick to point out Intel's chips are yet to make the jump to 64bit architecture.

Peter Palm, group marketing manager at Sun's microelectronics division, told Silicon.com: "Intel processors are still 32bit, and it won't be until Merced [first in the range now called Itanium] that they'll have 64bit capability. It seems they're trying to ramp up the performance on Pentium class machines because Merced is slipping so much."