Intel Gets Into Gaming

Intel's new Pentium 4 Extreme Edition chip will be used in gaming PCs from Dell, Gateway, and a number of other PC vendors, the companies announced Monday.

As expected, Intel released the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition Monday as a high-end desktop processor that improves the performance of the Pentium 4 product line until Prescott, the 90-nanometer version of the Pentium 4, is released later this year.

The chip's clock speed is 3.2 GHz, and it comes with 2MB of Level 3 cache and Intel's hyperthreading technology. According to chip analysts, the processor is essentially a desktop version of Intel's Xeon MP chip, which is used in servers.

Intel first announced the chip at the Fall Intel Developer Forum, one week before Advanced Micro Devices launched its 64-bit Athlon FX processor for gaming PCs. The new chip will cost $925 in quantities of 1000 units.

A Place in the PC

Gamers are viewed as influential PC buyers by chip makers and PC vendors. They are willing to pay top dollar for the best performance available on the market, and they push chip vendors to release new products and develop new technologies.

Gateway will make the processor available in a new high-end gaming PC, the 700GX. It will include 512MB of PC3200 (400-MHz) DDR SDRAM, a 160GB hard drive, a GeForce FX 5900G graphics card from NVidia with 256MB of video memory, a combo DVD-RAM/-R and CD-RW drive, and a 19-inch CRT monitor. The 700GX will cost $3300.

A configuration of Alienware's Area-51 Extreme gaming PC comes with the new chip and features 1GB of PC3200 DDR SDRAM, a 120GB hard drive, NVidia's GeForce FX5950 graphics card with 256MB of video memory, and dual DVD-ROM and CD-RW optical drives. With no display, the PC will cost $3030.

Dell's Dimension XPS desktop and Precision 360 workstation will now be available with the chip, Dell said. Falcon Northwest Computer Systems is also allowing customers to select the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition when configuring PCs, according to its Web page.