Intel Corp duly unveiled its highest performing Pentium II Xeon processor at 450MHz, plus new iterations of its low-end Celeron CPU which for the first time include an integrated 128Kb L2 cache. Code-named Mendocino, Intel’s 333MHz and 300MHz Celeron A parts are the first time the company has added L2 cache memory to an existing product part. Intel was driven to making the enhancement by the lackluster performance of its first 266MHz and 300MHz Celerons and their poor market reception, together with the lateness of its entry into the market for low-end processors that can power $800 to $1,200 PCs. Xeon and Celeron are both P6 cores and produced in five layer metal, 0.25 micron technology. The basic P6 design has 7.5m transistors – with its L2 cache Celeron now has 19m transistors. Intel will continue to sell the two L2 cache-less sell Celerons into next year. Celeron uses a 66MHz bus – compared with Xeon’s 100MHz bus – and cheaper packaging, motherboard and support logic chip technology. Intel declined to say when it might add the 100MHz bus to Celeron. Intel says it will probably add L2 cache to other products. The higher-performing SMP-enabled Xeon is designed for use in high- end servers and workstations. A clutch of vendors, including IBM, HP, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Intergraph, Toshiba and NEC announced new PC and or workstation and server models using the 450MHz Xeon and Celeron A parts. Xeon is priced $670 for 1,000-up, Celeron is from $192. Higher clock speed Mobile Pentium II and basic Pentium IIs are due this year.
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