Celeron steps into the limelight

Intel's original Celeron wasn't the bonanza the company was hoping for, sothey re-tooled it and re-released it this week with faster speeds and morepowerful features. The new "Celeron A" processors, as they're called, offer128 KB of L2 cache, finally bringing the performance of these low-end chipswell above that of the Pentium MMX CPUs they were designed to replace. Thenew Celeron A processors are about 25% faster than comparable olderCelerons, but they also come at higher clockspeeds: Intel introduced a 333MHz version this week.

And the good news about the Celeron continues when talk turns to pricing.Intel is placing the Celeron A in the bargain basement, which should finally signal the end of the Pentium/Pentium MMX era. A 333 MHz Celeron Awill cost about $190, compared to a 333 MHz Pentium II (which is only about5% faster) at $315. And unlike the launch of the original Celeron, this time machine systems makers are jumping on board: Dell, Gateway, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and other top PC-makers are now offering new sub-$1500 andsub-$1000 Celeron systems.

In other Intel news, the company also released the 450 MHz Pentium II thisweek, which rounds out its high-end. Most system vendors are already selling 450 MHz workstations and servers, which run on a 100 MHz bus (theCeleron and pre-350 MHz PII's use a 66 MHz bus). Also out is a 300 MHzversion of its mobile Pentium II CPU