Intel unveils new Celeron processors

Intel Corp. on Wednesday unveiled its new 600 MHz and 566 MHz Celeron processors, the company's fastest processors for the sub-$1,000 PC market.

Manufactured on Intel's 0.18-micron technology, the new processors feature greater speeds for customers and higher-volume manufacturing with lower production costs for the company. Intel can offer the new processors at reasonable prices because the 0.18-micron technology enables the company to use less material to manufacture them.

The new Celeron processors offer a performance boost of 10 percent to 56 percent over the current Celeron 533 MHz processors, which were released in January [FCW.com, Jan. 4, 2000]. That boost comes from a new instruction set inside of the chip, said Intel spokesman Seth Walker.

"We want to keep our foot on the gas in the sub-$1,000 PC market segment, and there will be a lot more silicon and several more Celeron processor family members announced before June," Walker said.

Intel's Celeron processors are the second-highest-selling PC processors in the world behind Intel's Pentium III processor family, which tends to be favored in the federal government market, but there has been an increase in that market for Celerons as well, Walker said.