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High-End Pentium II-450, Budget PCs Coming

Intel announces the fastest PII yet, plus budget processors that perform.

By Rebecca Sykes IDG News Service, Boston Bureau   

Who needs a processor this fast? In a press conference on Monday, Intel Microprocessor Marketing Director Richard Dracott said the speedy new PII-450 PCs offer computer users performance they'll need to run multiple tasks in the foreground while still other applications--such as those doing real-time virus checking, encryption, and file compression--run in the background.

In PC World testing, the new PII-450 PCs outpaced their 400-MHz siblings by about 9 percent. The more surprising results, however, came from the new budget processors, especially the 333-MHz Celeron; it runs at speeds comparable to a Pentium II-333 but is found in PCs that cost less than $1000. The new Celeron processors offer a 128KB secondary cache--a significant improvement over the first generation of Celeron processors, which lacked secondary cache altogether. That led to poor system performance (see "Pokey Celeron Disappoints," link to right). Dracott said the company will continue to sell Celerons without secondary cache until early next year.

Hewlett-Packard announced that it will bring the new Pentium II and Celeron processors to selected models in its Brio business PCs, Vectra corporate PCs, and Pavilion PCs, with prices ranging from $999 to $2265. In the company's Pavilion line, 450MHz processors will be used by the Pavilion 8390 and 8395.

NEC Monday announced it has added Intel's 450-MHz processor to its NEC Direction line of PCs, with prices starting at $2000. Beginning in September the company will also offer 450-MHz versions of its PowerMate 8100 series of corporate computers, starting at $2400, and its PowerMate 9000E PC workstation, starting at $3399.

NEC also introduced new corporate desktops that use Intel's new Celeron processors. NEC's PowerMate 5100 series will be available with the new 333-MHz and 300-MHz processors in September; prices will start at $1039 for the PowerMate 5100N and $1079 for the PowerMate 5100.

Compaq announced worldwide availability of new models in its Deskpro EP and Deskpro EN Series. The new machines will incorporate the new 450-MHz Pentium II processor and the new Intel Celerons running at 333-MHz and 300-MHz. Pricing information was not disclosed.

Paul Heltzel, PC World, also contributed to this report.