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Tech News for Saturday, October 9th 1999

D-Link Announces 10/100 USB EthernetPosted: 10/09/99     Source: Anandtech     Added by: Kim Heise
I'm still scratching my head over this one. How does one send 100mbps (Ethernet) speeds through a 12mbps USB port? Looks like the people over at Anandtech are just as stumped about this one.  Apparently D-Link has figured out a way to pull this trick off. Read the press release for more info.
For $79 it looks like a very good deal.

Tech News for Friday, October 8th 1999

Leadtek Announces the DDR version NVIDIA GeForce256.
Posted: 10/08/99     Source: Leadtek  Added by: Kim Heise
Voodoextreme pointed me to this press release from Leadtek. The company has decided to follow Creative Lab's path and release a DDR RAM based GeForce 256 card. I am very curios to see benchmarks comparing the standard SDRAM GeForce 256 to the double-bandwidth DDR RAM version.In theory the DDR RAM version should technically be twice as fast as the standard SDRAM version but benchmarks will have to prove that.
Price on this card: $350

RAM prices are falling?
Posted: 10/08/99     Source: The Register   Added by: Kim Heise
Those funny guys at the register report that RAM prices are slowly beginning to fall.  Some prices quoted where a drop from $330 to $300 for 128MB PC-100 RAM. That doesn't seem like much but the drop occurred within a week.
Unfortunately analysts think the price drop in RAM is very short-lived because there is still a large shortage of RAM due to the earthquake in Taiwan. The trick is when to figure out when to jump in and pick up some RAM before it begins to jump sky high again.

Microsoft patches browser hole.
Posted: 10/08/99     Source: CNET   Added by: Kim Heise
Microsoft today released a browser patch for a hole that lets malicious Web site operators steal files from a site visitor's computer.

The hole, reported last month, lets Web site operators get around a restriction that keeps them from downloading files outside their Web site domain. Internet Explorer normally lets Web page authors download files within their own domain.

The bug lets Web site operators read files on the visitor's machine or local intranet and primarily affects workstations connected to the Internet, Microsoft said in a security bulletin rereleased today.

The patch is available for free download on Microsoft's Web site.

Western Digital Expert 27.3 GB Hard Drive.
Posted: 10/08/99     Source: Tech-Review   Added by: Kim Heise
If you're in the market for some extra drive space you may want to drop by Tech-Review to take a look at Western Digital's new drive. Drive space is getting cheaper by the day and these drives just keep growing. 

Windows 2000 beta (Update).
Posted: 10/08/99     Source: Betanews   Added by: Kim Heise
While visiting Betanews, I noticed they had posted some dates for the Windows 2000 beta plans.

• 10/10/99 - Last Windows 2000 Issues Accepted
• 10/11/99 - Final Windows 2000 Bug Prioritization
• 10/12/99 - Windows 2000 RC3 Escrow Build
• 10/25/99 - Windows 2000 RC3 and RTM Calldowns. This is when the final build sign-off occurs.
• 10/26/99 - Windows 2000 RC3 Release
• 11/17/99 - Windows 2000 Hits RTM during COMDEX
  
  These dates are subject to change.

Also over at Windows98 Central they mention that Microsoft has posted DirectX 7.0 for Windows 2000 RC1 and RC2. There is a chance it will be posted to the public.

Windows 2000 beta.
Posted: 10/08/99     Source: CNN   Added by: Kim Heise
Rumor has it the last build of Windows 2000 (release candidate 2) was to be the final that Microsoft would send out to testers but it appears there are more beta versions planned. Also it looks like there will be release candidate 3 posted to testers. No official date when release candidate 3 will be available but according to the article Microsoft is targeting the Comdex event which is in November. No word on if release candidate 3 will be promoted to the final build.

ASUS K7M Athlon motherboard review.
Posted: 10/08/99     Source: Bxboards    Added by: Kim Heise
Bxboards has one of the first reviews of Asus's new AMD K7 motherboard. Here's a highlight from the article:

Unlike all other Athlon mainboards, this has voltage tweaks, bus speeds up to 150Mhz, and bus speeds increments - selectable in the BIOS, in 1Mhz increments! And we managed to overclock, without opening up our Athlon!

3dFX CEO resigns.
Posted: 10/08/99     Source: 3dShack Added by: Kim Heise
Not sure what's going on here but I will keep you updated on any further updates:

3dfx Interactive® Inc. (Nasdaq: TDFX - news) today announced that L. Gregory Ballard, its president and chief executive officer, has resigned effective October 31, 1999. The Board of Directors announced that an immediate search would begin for his successor.
<snip>
``Greg has contributed greatly to the success of the Company, and we are sad to see him leave,'' said Gordon Campbell, founder and chairman of 3dfx Interactive, Inc., on behalf of the Board of Directors. ``The Board will take this opportunity to bring in an executive to continue the exceptional growth that 3dfx has enjoyed. I have pledged my time and efforts to seeing that the transition is smooth and causes no disruption to the conduct of our growing business.''

Tech News for Thursday, October 7th 1999

DDR RAM. What exactly is it?
Posted: 10/07/99     Source: Gamespot Added by: Kim Heise
Gamespot takes a look at this new memory type and posts some very interesting notes regarding DDR. 
What's so special about DDR RAM? 
Essentially, DDR RAM allows for twice the data-transfer rate per clock cycle of standard SDR (single data rate) RAM found on all the major desktop video cards on the market today. This increased bandwidth eliminates the data bottleneck accompanied by running polygon- and texture-crunching 3D games at resolutions beyond 1024x768. Translation: Mind-blowing frame rates at jaw-dropping resolutions.

Now here's the catch. Actually there are two catches. Don't expect GeForce 256 cards with DDR RAM to become available at your local retailer anytime before November, or even December. And when they do ship, these cards are going to be hot property and thus their availability will be severely limited. Now here's the kicker - DDR RAM doesn't come cheap, and the vendors that'll be supplying DDR boards are paying through the nose for this stuff. How expensive will they be? Well, Creative announced its DDR board, called the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro, for US$349... and that's without a software bundle of any kind. Guillemot also announced the 3D Prophet DDR this morning for a whopping $389. To Guillemot's credit, however, its video cards have historically shipped with an above-average game bundle and have been clocked faster than Nvidia's reference specification.

Creative Liveware 3.0 CD available.
Posted: 10/07/99     Source: Creative Labs  Added by: Kim Heise
If you are a Soundblaster Live owner then you should look out for this new version. The CD is available from Creative Labs but no news available when you can download the new version. I will keep you posted.
If you are not familiar with Liveware, it's the system developed by Creative Labs to drive the Soundblaster Live series cards that simulates real-world environments such as rooms, hallways etc...

New video card player on the market: Gigapixel.
Posted: 10/07/99     Source: The Register  Added by: Kim Heise
The company Gigapixel claims that their new video card will beat all the current top video card companies like 3dFx, nVidia and S3. What makes GP-1 interesting is its use of a tile-based rendering scheme instead of the traditional polygon approached used by every other mainstream graphics accelerator.

According to GigaPixel CEO George Haber, GP-1 breaks a scene into a series of small tiles and renders each individually. That, he said, allows the chip to render a fully anti-aliased image -- which is where GP-1 gets its superior image quality from -- without the massive processing overhead it usually requires.

No mention of when this card will be available to the public and with all the hype I would wait to see how the production version compares with the competition at the time. I do think however that the technology looks intriguing and I will post any further developments.

Earthquake in Taiwan puts a strain on PC motherboards.
Posted: 10/07/99     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise
With RAM prices skyrocketing it looks like motherboards are becoming the next price rocket. The article quotes several Taiwanese motherboard vendors trying to recover from the disaster and expect it taking over four weeks for them to ramp up production to supply the demand. Noted in the article was that the new Intel i820 chipset and AMD K7 motherboards are being hit worst.
Not that it matters with Intel's new i820 chipset since the company has put the chipset on hold.

Sun unveils new processor.
Posted: 10/07/99     Source:TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise
With all the hype we've seen in the past with Sun and their new processors I would wait and see how this one develops. The article was small enough to post here:

Called the MAJC 5200, Sun's 500-MHz device is designed for use in image and audio processing, data-packet forwarding, voice-over-Internet, and other high-end functions. Introduced by Sun last summer, this week's announcement marked the chip's official unveiling.

Billed as a "convergence" processor by Sun, Mountain View, Calif., the chip integrates two 128-bit VLIW (very-long-instruction word) microprocessors on a single chip, allowing the device to support several high-speed operations at the same time.

"[The MAJC 5200 supports] graphical- and numerical-intensive tasks," said Bill Joy, chief scientist for Sun, at a press event at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, Calif..

According to Joy, the MAJC 5200 chip is capable of decoding two MPEG streams in real time while simultaneously executing an audio decode function. The chip also handles more than 100 voice-over-IP channels while enabling encryption and decompression of packets over a 10-Gbit/s connection.

Built around a 0.22-micron process, the 1.8-V device dissipates 15 W of power. The chip will begin sampling in the second quarter of next year. Pricing was not disclosed.

Matrox announces the Marvel G400-TV
Posted: 10/07/99     Source: Matrox  Added by: Kim Heise
Matrox has released another superb all-in-one product for users who wish to do some home video editing. The suggested price on this card is for $324.
Here are some of the key specs on this card:

• AGP 2X/4X video card with 16MB SGRAM memory

• Matrox G400 256-bit DualBus graphics chip with integrated 300MHz RAMDAC

• Hardware-MJPEG video capture and editing

• TV tuning with fully programmable PC-VCR Remote

• DVD playback and software DVD player

• TV output with independent resolutions, refresh rates and color depths

• Dual video display

• MJPEG to MPEG2 conversion software

• A

I will keep an eye out for some reviews on the Marvel G400-TV.

AMD reports a loss but beats expectations
Posted: 10/07/99     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise
Another good article over a CNET talking about AMD's quarterly financial results in that the company posted a loss (which was to be excepted) but also beat expectations on exactly how bad the loss would be. AMD posted a net loss of 72 cents a share but expectations were at 97 cents a share. AMD

NEC halts production of Rambus chips
Posted: 10/07/99     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise
News like this was inevitable since the delay with Intel's new chipset which was supposed to use this new RAM type. Here's the scoop:

TOKYO--NEC, Japan's largest chipmaker, said it will temporarily suspend production of Rambus chips after Intel delayed a product that works with the next-generation memory technology. 

Here's some other quick snippets from the article that I thought were noteworthy:

The world's biggest memory chipmakers, Samsung of South Korea and Micron Technology, said yesterday they are planning to refit plants so they can switch to synchronous DRAM output.

The delay has also led No. 2 computer maker Hewlett-Packard to put off shipping the latest models of its Vectra corporate PC and Kayak workstation.

Toshiba, Japan's second-largest chipmaker, said Intel's chipset delay won't affect its production plans because it only makes Rambus DRAM chips for Sony's PlayStation 2 home video game player, due to go on sale early next year.

Tech News for Wednesday, October 6th 1999

Two types of GeForce 256 memory.
Posted: 10/06/99     Source: Glaze 3D  Added by: Kim Heise
Glaze 3D brings up a very interesting point that if you plan on buying a GeForce 256 based video card it's best to wait until the next generation versions that have DDR RAM. Here's why:

I wanted to mention one thing to you that I've noticed nobody seems to want to talk about. The GeForce memory types.

To my understanding, the fillrate number of 480Mpixel/sec nVidia announced for GeForce is only achieved with DoubleDataRate memory (DDR) which is not very well available at the moment. And SDRAM memory gives only half of the bandwidth. So, the first cards I've seen announced like Creatives etc, all use SDRAM. Which means the fillrate is 240Mpix/sec.

480Mpix/sec with 32bit color and 32bit Z requires one read (Z) and two writes (Color, Z) which is 5.76Gb/sec bandwidth. For example 128bits of SDRAM at 150MHz gives 2.4Gb/sec bandwidth, which equals to maximum of 200Mpix/sec (32bit pixels). For the comparison, Glaze3D has 12Gb/sec bandwidth.

So, people should really wait for the DDR version of the geforce boards if they want the announced 480Mpix/sec speed.

Who will win? Rambus or DDR SDRAM
Posted: 10/06/99     Source: Vision Online  Added by: Kim Heise
Vision Online takes a hard long look at two competing memory standards which are emerging and who will be the one to win as the next PC standard. Here's a clip from the article:
The new millenium is bringing major changes in computer hardware. Advances in manufacturing technology are on the verge of taking processor speeds into the gigahertz range. Memory speeds must keep pace. Two new standards, DDR SDRAM and Rambus, are in competition for the heart of the PC market. DDR SDRAM is taking an evolutionary approach, while Rambus proposes to revolutionize PC design. To further complicate matters, DDR SDRAM is an open standard, whereas Rambus is proprietary, so the ultimate winner of this battle will have a significant impact on the nature of PC manufacturing. 

Asus AMD K7 motherboard preview.
Posted: 10/06/99     Source: LostCircuits  Added by: Kim Heise
Lostcircuits has posted a sneak preview of Asus's new K7M motherboard. Here are some of their preliminary conclusions:
ASUS is the first manufacturer to actually come out with a fully featured Athlon mainboard. The performance is of the K7M is no better or worse than that seen in its contenders, namely FIC SD11 or MSI 6167. However, for those that have been looking for the additional features found as standard on almost all current high end boards, the ASUS K7M has definitely more to offer than the competition.

US firm previews 140GB media disk storage
Posted: 10/06/99     Source: The Register  Added by: Kim Heise
The Register reports that a US (C3D) company demonstrated fully-working prototypes of a 140GB, read-only CD-sized disk and a 10GB read-only credit-card sized card (in other words less than half the width of a PC card).
C3D hopes to ship the products within the next twelve months.
C3D technology works by using the properties of fluorescent incoherent light -- or light in which the waves are out of step. This affords much better resolution than current optical disk technology which is based on the properties of ordinary light.

Tech News for Tuesday, October 5th 1999

AMD demonstrates 800mhz K7.
Posted: 10/05/99     Source: ZDNN  Added by: Kim Heise
AMD demonstrated the 800mhz K7 chip at the Microprocessor Forum. The new chip was designed with the 0.18 micron wafer size over the current 0.25 micron size. Shrinking the distances between transistors leads to higher clock speeds, smaller chip sizes and full integration of the  L2 cache. The company states that the 1ghz K7 chip will be available sometime during the first half of next year. 
Other improvements are 266mhz bus speeds and the size of the L2 cache will be increased up to 1MB. 

As a footnote to this news post I'm going to close it off with an excerpt from the article:
Along with upping the bus speed, AMD will introduce a new input/output bus, called Lightning Data Transfer (LDT), which will connect the EV6 to I/O subsystems, such as 64-bit PCI. LDT will be important in maintaining system performance in multiple processor settings, AMD said today at the Microprocessor Forum.

Bulletproof FTP 1.15 available.
Posted: 10/05/99     Source: BPFTP  Added by: Kim Heise
Bullet Proof FTP v1.15 is now available for download here. In case you have never heard of Bulletproof FTP, it is the best FTP Windows program available. 
Here's a list of the fixes:
V1.15 6th October 1999 
-Due to the large number of people requesting it, icons are now color the whole time. 
-BPFTP uses Windows icons for files, instead of the plain one it used to use. 
-Change directory appears next to the current directory, and no longer in the listing. 
-Exporting/importing a sitelist now also exports/imports the sitename.
-Problems with V1.14 were fixed

AMD ships 700mhz K7 in latest IBM and Compaq systems.
Posted: 10/05/99     Source: MSNBC   Added by: Kim Heise
AMD's latest 700mhz CPU is being shipped in the IBM Aptiva and Compaq Presario systems. With the launch of the new chip AMD has also announced a 32% cut in current K7 (Athlon) prices. Watch for Intel to start throwing some vapor-ware press releases shortly.

AMD's new "Sledgehammer" processor.
Posted: 10/05/99     Source: ZDNN   Added by: Kim Heise
AMD's new 64bit processor unofficially labeled the K8 has now been officially tagged "Sledgehammer". The new 64 bit processor won't see the public eye until 2001 which means the new Intel Itanium will have the leg up initially.  AMD touts that the new Sledgehammer processor will run 32-bit applications significantly faster than Intel's new Itanium chip and porting code over to their 64bit architecture will be relatively easier.
With all this vapor-ware out there it's to early to predict until we see actual products so I would take these press releases with a pinch of salt.

GeForce 256 Benchmarks.
Posted: 10/05/99     Source: nV News   Added by: Kim Heise
Good old Mike over at nV News has posted some benchmarks showing what the GeForce256 is capable of doing when compared to a TNT2-Ultra. Looks like the GeForce 256 still suffers a severe performance loss when using 32bits/pixel display depth. I was hoping for better performance with the GeForce 256 and I might just hold onto my TNT2-Ultra for whatever is available next. Here's a graph taken directly from Mike's article:

Benchmarks using Quake III test (P2-450) Source :nv News
16/16 is 16 bit color and 16 bit textures
32/32 is 32 bit color and 32 bit textures

I agree fully with Mike's conclusions in that the GeForce slows down dramatically when switching from 16bits/pixel to 32bits/pixel and that these benchmarks should improve when the new hardware features are implemented into Quake 3.

WinAmp 2.50e and Red Hat 6.1
Posted: 10/05/99     Source: N/A   Added by: Kim Heise
A couple of notable software releases are available. For the latest WinAmp head on over here and for the press release on the latest Red Hat jump over here. For those of you unfamiliar with WinAmp it is a very powerful and versatile MP3 player. Red Hat is one of the major players for the Linux operating system.

MCI To Buy Sprint In $129 Billion Deal
Posted: 10/05/99     Source: Yahoo  Added by: Kim Heise
These companies just keep getting bigger and bigger. Here's the scoop on this one:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - MCI WorldCom Inc. (Nasdaq:WCOM - news), the second-biggest U.S. long-distance company, Tuesday said it would buy No. 3 carrier Sprint Corp. (NYSE:FON - news) in a deal valued at $129 billion, by far the biggest corporate takeover ever.

AMD K7 700mhz hits the streets.
Posted: 10/05/99     Source: AMD Zone  Added by: Kim Heise
Now that AMD's new chip is available there are more reviews than you can shake a stick at. Here are some of the best reviews available:  Gamers Depot, Hardware France, Anandtech, Sharkyextreme
Price for the AMD K7 700mhz is ~$850.

Tech News for Monday, October 4th 1999

Intel names Merced chip Itanium
Posted: 10/04/99     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise
Intel touts another new high-end chip which is based on the new over hyped Coppermine technology. The new chip is scheduled to hit the streets sometime during the middle of next year. As for why the name was changed from Merced to Itanium:

The name Itanium was chosen to "reflect the strength and performance of the processor," said Jami Dover, vice president of marketing at Intel. Sausalito, California-based Lexicon, which also coined the chip names Celeron and Xeon, came up with the name, she said.

Creative Labs announces Annihilator and Annihilator Pro
Posted: 10/04/99     Source: 3DGPU  Added by: Kim Heise
Here's the press release directly from Creative Labs:

MILPITAS, Calif., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Creative Technology Ltd. (Nasdaq: CREAF), the leading provider of multimedia solutions for personal entertainment, today announced the 3D Blaster Annihilator. This new addition to the popular 3D Blaster line delivers unparalleled processing performance for gamers. 3D Blaster Annihilator is the first consumer-oriented, PC-based graphics accelerator available to move the entire 3D pipeline off of the CPU and onto the card -- dramatically enhancing the gaming experience. It offers stunning features such as Hardware Transform & Lighting, Cubic Environment Mapping and Quad Pixel Pipeline Architecture with 32MB of ultra fast memory and AGP 4X support. The 3D Blaster Annihilator renders in real-time very compelling and realistic 3D images similar to 3D animated movies today. Game developers are now able to produce richly detailed, far more realistic games without compromising frame rate -- bringing a level of intensity and performance not possible with previous graphics accelerators.
This new accelerator leverages the new GeForce 256(TM) technology from NVIDIA -- the world's first Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). The GeForce 256 is an innovative new graphics processor that moves the entire 3D rendering pipeline to the graphics card, creating a whole new category: the Graphics Processing Unit, or GPU. By offloading these computationally intense tasks from the CPU, the GeForce 256 enables game developers to create games with significantly more detailed geometry, enhanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and higher fidelity physics, resulting in more exciting, far more intense gameplay.

With up to 15 million triangles, 480 million pixels and 3.8 gigatexels-per-second, the 3D Blaster Annihilator outperforms any graphics accelerators available today. The parallel processor design, two separate geometry units (transform and lighting) and four rendering engines, make the 3D Blaster Annihilator a stunning gaming platform.

3D Blaster Annihilator 3D Blaster Annihilator comes bundled with Colorific(R) and 3Deep(TM). This software package is designed to insure that every game and critical desktop application runs with perfect color calibration. Colorific provides a quick and easy way for customers to improve color matching between their monitor and printer by creating a color characterization of the monitor. The 3Deep gamma correction software is a high-quality solution for improving the lighting and shading effects in 3D games. In addition, the 3D Blaster Annihilator also comes bundled with WinDVD from InterVideo, a demo CD with the most advanced 3D benchmarks and incredible technology demonstrations and a number of 3D games.

Pricing and Availability The 3D Blaster Annihilator will be available through Creative's extensive distribution and retail sales network in October, at a retail price of US$249.99.

MILPITAS, Calif., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Creative Technology Ltd. (Nasdaq: CREAF), the leading provider of multimedia solutions for personal entertainment, today announced the second of its two new graphics cards based on the NVIDIA GeForce 256 GPU -- the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro.

This version of the 3D Blaster Annihilator offers the same stunning features such as Hardware Transform & Lighting, Cubic Environment Mapping and Quad Pixel Pipeline Architecture but additionally features 32MB of DDR (Double Data Rate) memory, thus increasing the performance even further.

DDR memory is the very latest in graphics subsystem memory and offers power users increased performance at higher resolutions and deeper color depths. By utilizing both the front and back edges of the memory clock DDR memory achieves approximately double the bandwidth of conventional technologies such as SDRAM and SGRAM. This dramatic increase in memory bandwidth eliminates one of the major bottlenecks for high performance graphics.

"Traditionally there has been a compromise between high frame rates and the desire to run games at resolutions beyond 1280*1024. The 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro eliminates this compromise and lets the extreme gamer run games at 1600*1200 above 30 Fps," said Steve Mosher, vice president, Graphics Business Unit for Creative.

Pricing and Availability The 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro will be available, in limited quantities only, through Creative's extensive distribution and retail sales network in time for the holiday season, at a retail price of US$349.99.

Desktop Theatre 5.1 DTT2500 Digital
Posted: 10/04/99     Source: GA-Source  Added by: Kim Heise
Wouldn't it be nice to add this speaker system to your PC? This kit includes a Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder and it's priced between $200 to $250! Head on over to this article on GA-Source for a full review.

Building your own PC.
Posted: 10/04/99     Source: Ars-Technica  Added by: Kim Heise
The boys over at Ars-Technica have posted a very useful document on building your own PC. 

Asus AMD K7M motherboard.
Posted: 10/04/99     Source: Ace's Hardware   Added by: Kim Heise
Asus AMD K7 motherboards have been showing up in Europe and even Compaq's Presario (yes, Compaq - not a typo) are shipping with Asus's new K7 motherboard. No word yet when it will be available in the US but expect a press release shortly from Asus.

DirectX 7.0 performance gains.
Posted: 10/04/99     Source: Ace's Hardware   Added by: Kim Heise
Looks like DirectX 7.0 shows some impressive performance gains over DirectX 6.1. If you haven't installed the new DirectX 7.0 API jump over here to get it. 

Another Melissa virus clone?
Posted: 10/04/99     Source: GeekNews  Added by: Kim Heise
Without rehashing the article here's the direct quote:
A computer virus that appears to work in a similar fashion as the so-called Melissa virus has emerged over the weekend and is wreaking havoc for users of Microsoft Outlook. The virus comes in an email with the subject of "Check This." The body contains a message that states "Have fun with these links." Attached to the email is a file called "links1.vbs" and if you click on it, the virus takes off through your address book and sends the virus out to anyone listed in the your address book. Microsoft has not heard of the problem, but is reportedly looking into it.

Intel and AMD turn up the heat.
Posted: 10/04/99     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise
With AMD releasing the 700mhz AMD K7 (October 4th) and Intel about to release the new Coppermine based processor design for it's Pentium III chips the competition is heating up. Intel's new Coppermine based Pentium III will be shipped initially at 700mhz and a full press release on the new chip is slated for October 25. Mobile Coppermine chips will also be announced by Intel on October 25 and they will be clocked at 400mhz, 450mhz and 500mhz.

The new Intel Coppermine design layout calls for the L2 cache to be directly integrated to the CPU (256k) and this means the L2 cache speed will finally be equal to the CPU's actual clock speed. Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't Intel been using this L2 to CPU integration design for sometime now with the Celeron? Currently all Pentium II and Pentium III chips L2 cache speeds run at 1/2 the speed of the CPU clock speed. Also added to the upcoming Coppermine CPU architecture is the 133mhz front-side bus speed for the much delayed I-820 motherboard.

For those users with fancy BX motherboards I suspect there will be a simple BIOS update available for Coppermine CPU's and won't have to upgrade the motherboard to the I-280 chipset.