Intel will release its 450MHz and 500MHz Slot One Katmai chips at the end of February next year and is pricing them at $528 and $760 respectively. But those prices are set to drop to $445 and $675 respectively on the 11 April 1999. The processors, which use a 100MHz bus and come with 512K of L2 cache, include additional MMX instruction sets designed to appeal to workstation and high end desktops. Intel is hoping to shift its process technology to 0.18 microns during next year. The introduction of the Katmai processors at February end will coincide with price cuts on its 350MHz, 400MHz and 450MHz PIIs, which will then cost $190, $270 and $470 respectively. That will spell the end of the 333MHz Pentium II. Last week, Intel confirmed that while it would honour orders on 266MHz and 300MHz parts until the end of 1999, it had effectively discontinued supplying them. But Intel will continue to slash prices as it introduces other processors at the beginning of next year. In early January, as earlier revealed here, Intel will introduce a 400MHz Celeron processor with a Mendocino core, and will slash prices on its 366MHz part to around $150. Some motherboard suppliers are expected to support these parts with both a Slot One and 370-pin socket, but Intel hopes for volume on the latter by April. Again, as already revealed here, Intel will introduce Mobile Celerons at the beginning of next year. All prices are when and if you buy 1,000 parts, unless your Intel salesman tells you different... ® Related Stories Katmai lands amongst pigeons Katmai out of the bag AMD claims gamesters not interested in Katmai Katmai outgunned by Motorola's AltiVec AMD, Intel let K7 and Katmai off the leash Intel roadmap reveals plans up to year 2000 Reports from the Intel Developer Forum Reports from the '98 Microprocessor Forum