"Steve Wright" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Some undeserving colleague of yours has been all smiles for the last two months because of the new 300MHz Pentium II on his desk. Want to deflate that smarmy grin? Mention the word Deschutes. No sooner had Intel introduced its 300MHz chip than it unveiled a faster, entirely revamped packaging of the Pentium II, code-named Deschutes. More than just an uptick in megahertz, Deschutes promises speedier performance across a wide range of applications. And it guarantees to further baffle already confused system buyers selecting among the menagerie of processors on the market. PC Computing's Performance Labs put a quintet of top-tier 333MHz Deschutes systems through their paces. As expected, when we tested systems from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Gateway, NEC, and Compaq we saw a modest increase in performance. But to the bemusement of current Pentium II owners (see smarmy grin above), we saw virtually no increase in price. Deschutes PCs won't get a big kick in speed until Intel releases its BX chip set for motherboards by this summer, which adds a 100MHz PCI bus. No matter: As price-performance goes, Deschutes is today's sweet spot. Nothing changes in the CPU's core instruction set from the current Pentium II. But the new packaging introduces several new ways to goose performance from the existing chip, depending on which version you choose. There will be two flavors of Deschutes, drably dubbed Slot 1 and Slot 2. Most stand-alone systems and notebooks running business apps will come with a Slot 1 Deschutes; servers and high-end workstations will ship with the Slot 2 version. The unfortunate designation of slots refers to the motherboard connector into which the CPU is plugged. Unlike plain-Jane Pentiums, the Pentium II chip comes on a circuit board with an L2 cache. The whole affair requires a proprietary slot. Slot 1 Deschutes systems can plug into existing Pentium II motherboards. The difference between the two CPUs? The Deschutes runs at a faster clock speed, devours less power, and stays cooler. But future versions may come with a 1MB L2 cache. More important, Deschutes will run on 100MHz system buses, up from today's 66MHz bus. Because Deschutes chips are rendered by a .25-micron process, they consume less electricity (1.2 volts to 2.2 volts) and run cooler. This makes them an ideal platform for notebooks--or so Intel hopes. But already notebook makers have begun to balk. The CPU's form factor won't fit into many super-skinny portables. Also, while the CPU runs cool for its clock speed, heat dissipation is still an enormous challenge. Like the Pentium II, Deschutes systems accommodate up to two CPUs. The initial 333MHz version of the chip will be followed by 350MHz and 400MHz versions. Only later this year will manufacturers begin delivering PCs with 100MHz buses, however. And the cost to you will go up precipitously, since these faster buses require expensive 100MHz DRAM chips. But the performance boost for video decompression, 3-D modeling, and other high-bandwidth chores promises to rock you back on your heels. =================================================== As big bird spreads the word, anybody with a heart votes love. - Fluke. =================================================== PERSONAL EMAIL TO: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues