Although dealers and distributors have been able to buy Intel's .25 micron 600MHz part and the 500MHz Celeron for some weeks, as reported here, the big guns will roll out their versions tomorrow. (Story: Intel PIII/600 for sale: applies price fork to AMD) Compaq will introduce 600MHz Pentium III versions of the AP200 and AP400 workstations tomorrow. Intel's choice of 2 August is to coincide with the annual graphics and workstation shindig called Siggraph. The move is part of Intel's desire and need to whip up as much interest in the Pentium III as possible in a bid to queer AMD's K7 Athlon pitch. It is already producing the 600MHz Pentium III at .25 micron in quantity and offered the part to its dealers early so that they could also offer PCs at corporate launch-time. Again, as reported here, Intel made pre-emptive price moves on its PIII processors two weeks ago to further pressure its would-be rival. ®