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December 8, 1999
Web posted at: 9:16 a.m. EST (1416 GMT)

by Laurianne McLaughlin

(IDG) -- Want a sneak peek at the PC industry's scripts for the year 2000? We'd call one of them "There's Something About Megahertz," and it stars a one-gigahertz processor. The industry's cranking up the speed and trying to tease you with fancy words like "copper interconnects" and "Itanium." Here's the inside scoop.

Megahertz Magic

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At October's Microprocessor Forum, the annual gathering of CPU clans, we heard one sentiment repeatedly: Consumers can be fooled with a magic rating called megahertz. That is, most buyers do little research when purchasing a new computer--they just pick the machine that has the biggest MHz number. "Megahertz is all people care about," says Glenn Henry, president of Centaur Technology, maker of low-end CPUs.

That being said, it's up to buyers to know better. Don't confuse CPU clock speed with PC power. An extra 50 MHz may look appealing, but it doesn't usually boost application performance much. For example, Pentium III-550-based systems we've tested on average run business apps only 5 percent faster than their PIII-500 counterparts do, despite having a 10 percent speed advantage.

Be just as wary when you're considering systems based on bargain-basement chips. Via Technologies, the new owner of Cyrix and Centaur, plans to produce sub-$50 chips for sub-$1000 PCs. Analysts predict these systems will ship midyear with attractive MHz ratings. But they may not run real-world applications as well as those based on Intel's Celeron, because Via's overall chip design may not be as efficient.

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Of course, sometimes more speed does amount to more performance. For example, Intel's latest Coppermine PIIIs have high clock speeds plus a 256KB on-chip secondary cache--and this addition to the PIII design is responsible for supercharging Microsoft Office apps. You should see even more impressive speed gains as the year wears on. AMD says to expect 800-MHz Athlon chips early in 2000, 900-MHz Athlons in late first quarter or early second quarter, and 1-GHz Athlons by the fourth quarter. From Intel, analysts expect 800-MHz PIII chips during the second quarter, and the Pentium IV chip, code-named Willamette, by the end of the year. Willamette is expected to handle more simultaneous instructions than the PIII, and to break the 1-GHz barrier. The accompanying chip set will likely support a 200-MHz system bus, like the Athlon's.

Cool Copper

Clock speed isn't the only hot topic involving processors. AMD has some manufacturing tricks up its sleeve. At its new plant in Dresden, Germany, AMD is sampling .18-micron Athlon processors using copper interconnects (today's chips use aluminum). Copper enables lower voltages and accelerates exchanges between transistors. AMD also plans to add an on-die L2 cache to its Athlon chips.

Furthermore, by late summer, the industry marquee will probably feature a low-cost Intel chip code-named Timna that integrates graphics and sound capabilities.

Finally, Intel's Itanium is expected to arrive midyear. This chip, formerly known as Merced, will enable 64-bit computing. Compared to today's 32-bit processors, Itanium can handle more main memory and manage huge chunks of data--such as a 3D model of an airplane or an online store's customer database. It suits workstations and servers.

But don't look for Itanium PCs anytime soon. Software has yet to be written or recompiled to accommodate a 64-bit processor. An Itanium machine will run today's 32-bit apps, but it'll run them no faster than a middle-of-the-road PIII system can.

"Itanium won't be relevant for PCs until 2003 at the earliest, more likely 2005," says Michael Slater, an analyst at MicroDesign Resources. So forget about Itanium unless you're designing next year's monster sports utility vehicle.

When considering the PCs of 2000, however, judge them by more than their megahertz ratings--or you could buy a tale with an unhappy ending.

Where the Chips Fall

Plotting when to buy your next PC? Here are the estimated shipping dates for this year's most anticipated new processors.

• First quarter: 800-MHz AMD Athlon Second quarter: 800-MHz Intel Pentium III
• Late second quarter: Intel 64-bit Itanium processors for workstations and servers
• Late second quarter: Intel Timna for bargain PCs, Via chips for bargain PCs
• Fourth quarter: 1-GHz AMD Athlon, 1-GHz Intel Willamette