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April 18, 1998
News
- Guest is Sheryl Rigby, Mktg. Mgr. for Intel’s Processor
Division
- Well, they’re finally here. The new 350 and 400 MHz Pentium II systems with 100 MHz
system buses and the 440BX chipset have arrived in full force and are ready for purchase
at your favorite retail or on-line computer store. As I mentioned last week, Intel
formally introduced the chips on April 15 and numerous system vendors were ready at the
intro with new systems featuring them. What I didn’t know last week and I do know now
is the prices and performance of these systems. Happily, they both look pretty good. In
fact, Gateway has a system for under $3,000 that includes the 400 MHz Pentium II, 128 MB
of RAM, 10 GB drive, 2x DVD-ROM, nVidia 128-accelerated 3D graphics, 17" monitor and
your typical software bundle for under $3,000. Now that’s a nice system. If
you’re willing to pay about 300 bucks more, Dell has a system with similar specs but
it includes a 16 GB hard drive. Yes, that’s right 16 GB. Best of all, the company has
finally relented and decided to support the FAT32 file system so all 16 GBs appear as one
drive instead of being broken up into 2 GB increments. Other companies have systems
ranging in price from about $2,200 to $3,500. Not surprisingly, there have also been some
price cuts on systems with the 333 MHz processor, so you should shop around for the best
deals.
- Performance-wise the initial reports show these systems to be better than the 333 MHz
systems, but interestingly, the difference isn’t as large as the jump to the 100 MHz
system bus might have led you to believe it would be. In fact, the speed improvements
scale almost linearly with the increase in processor speed. In other words, with all other
things being equal, the difference in processor speed between the 333 and the 400 is about
the same as the difference in overall system performance, despite the 100 MHz system bus.
The reason for this, according to the people at Intel that I spoke with, is that the 100
MHz system bus was needed to avoid performance improvements that were not even as great as
the processor’s speed increase. In other words, if you tried to put a 350 or 400 MHz
processor on a 66 MHz system bus, the performance wouldn’t even match the increase in
the processor speed. Certainly there are some situations that the faster system bus
provides even better than expected results, but it’s not necessarily across the
board.
- Here’s another interesting point regarding these processors and their accompanying
chipsets: they basically mark the beginning of the end for processor upgrades. The reason
is, if you try to upgrade your older Pentium II 233 with a 400 MHz processor, the
processor will kick down to 266 MHz when it recognizes it’s attached to a 66 MHz
system bus or the computer may not boot at all. Also, if you try to plug an older Pentium
II processor into a motherboard with a faster 100 MHz system bus, the motherboard will
recognize the slower processor and automatically kick the system bus speed down to 66 MHz,
which gives you the exact same speed as the system you took it from. In other words, you
won’t get any improvement.
- In the low-cost chip arena, Intel introduced the Celeron, the company’s first newly
named chip since the Pentium. Internally, however, the Celeron is nothing more than a
Pentium II processor minus the onboard L2 cache. In addition, the processor doesn’t
come in a fancy black cartridge, although it does still come in a plug-in board that fits
into the Slot 1 architecture. Few systems with the new chip are available yet, although HP
added a Celeron-equipped PC to their Pavilion line. Interestingly, the Celeron model will
be priced almost $500 more than another model with the older 233 MHz Pentium MMX ($1,299
vs. $799), but will offer no better performance for many applications. Now, the Celeron
version does have some more memory and maybe a few more goodies, but I think the MMX
system is still going to be a much better deal.
- In a pre-emptive strike, Cyrix announced their latest entry to the low-cost processor
market a day before Intel introduced Celeron. Cyrix’ new M II 300 is actually the
latest in the company’s line of 6x86MX processors, but sports a new, and as far as
I’m concerned, much better name. Like other Cyrix processors, the MII 300
doesn’t really run at 300 MHz, but offers what the company claims is a performance
rating equivalent to an Intel processor running at 300 MHz. Systems featuring the chip are
expected to retail for just over $1,000 and be available sometime next month.
- Symantec introduced a new suite of Windows 95 utilities for notebook users called Norton
Mobile Essentials. Designed specifically for business travellers, Norton Mobile Essentials
includes some of the core components of its other utilities, including virus checking and
disk checking, and then incorporates other new utilities and information. For example, the
Norton Connection Doctor helps you troubleshoot and phone line problems, and the Norton
Location Manager helps you change a whole variety of settings affecting things like remote
dial-up, network log-ons, system time and more. You can download a free beta now from the
company’s web site.
- Microsoft finally announced the pricing for Windows 98 this week. It’ll be $109 for
the upgrade (with street prices expected around $89) and $209 for the full version. These
are the exact same prices the company charged for Windows 95 back in 1995, although
Windows 95 was a much bigger change and upgrade than Windows 98 is. In fact, Windows 98 is
really more like Windows 95.1 which makes these prices seem unfairly high. I would say
this is not a smart move given all the heat they’re under for being in a monopoly
position.
- In other Microsoft news, the company has finally put together a Year 2000 web site that
lists the status of all their applications with regard to Year 2000 compatibility. As it
turns out, Word for DOS 5.0 and Access 2.0 for Windows are not compatible with the Year
2000 and, even worse, won’t be upgraded to support them. In addition, Office
Professional 4.3 for Windows is listed as being not-compatible because it includes Access
2.0—all other components of the Office Suite are compatible (or have upgrades that
will make them compatible.) But the bigger issue is that lots of applications need updates
to make them completely Year 2000-compatible, including Windows 3.1’s File Manager,
Microsoft Explorer 4.0 and some of the DOS elements of Windows 95. So, if you use any of
those applications, you’re going to need to upgrade them to make everything work when
the clock ticks over to January 1, 2000. That means a lot of people are going to have to
worry about making upgrades. Now, in some cases the fixes are relatively minor, but
that’s still a staggering amount of effort that’s going to have to be made just
to get Microsoft’s operating systems and applications Year 2000-compliant. The bug
fixes for Windows 3.1 and most other applications are linked from that page, so you can
get them and install them from there, but the IE 4.0 fix won’t be there for about 60
days. When it does arrive, it’s going to come in the form of a Service Pack that
fixes the Year 2000 problem and a host of other bugs/problems. I’ll fill you in when
I know more.
- Apple reported its second straight profitable quarter, which is certainly good news for
Mac fans. The company beat all the analyst’s expectations, citing very strong sales
of their G3 systems. Let’s hope they can keep the ball rolling and keep the Mac
market active.
- So, if you’re sick of standard boxy PC shapes and you want to try something new,
you might want to check out the new Rock City PC from Panda Project, a sub-$1,000 computer
that’s cube-shaped. The $895 computer, which features an older 200 MHz Pentium MMX
processor, 32 MB of RAM and a 2.1 GB hard drive, sits on one corner of its cube shape with
the help of a special stand. The outside of the box is decorated with lightning designs
which light up when the computer is on. You can certainly find faster machines than this,
but if you’re looking to making a fashion statement with your computer, this one
could be for you.
- Panasonic introduced yet another entry into the tiny subnotebook market with their
2-pound CF-M31, which features a 120 MHz MMX processor, 1.6 GB drive and an 8.4"
active matrix screen. The unit, which retails for $1,999, also includes a trackball
instead of those horrible pencil eraser pointers.
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