The 450MHz flavour of the Pentium III is set to be phased out within the next week or two, sources close to Intel confirmed today. That probably sets a record for the quickest movement of any Intel processor from birth to banishment. It also indicates -- quite clearly -- that despite advice from senior chip analysts, Intel is going to play the price game in a bid to upset the AMD Athlon applecart. And we can now confirm, as predicted here last weekend, that Intel has indeed slashed and burned the price of its Celeron family once more. The company notified its dealer, sorry reseller, base earlier this week of the decline in pricing. The percentage decline per 1000 since the 6th of June is 22 per cent for the 466MHz Celeron, 18 per cent for the 433MHz Celeron, 18 per cent for the 400MHz part with SEPP packaging and 22 per cent for the 400MHz part with plastic packaging. The 500MHz Celeron is $167/1000, the 466MHz $147/1000, the 433MHz $113/1000, the 400MHz $93/1000, the 366MHz $69/1000, and the 333MHz $67/1000. Meanwhile, Intel yesterday firmly denied any suggestion that it had production problems with the Celeron family. A representative told The Register: "I think I would have heard about that". However, reports from European distributors indicated there is a shortage of 400MHz parts. Further, although Intel could not confirm this at press time, last week a truck containing 20,000 Celerons was stolen in Holland. Intel offers a limited type of price protection to its authorised distributors, but always warns its customers, both channel and OEMs, that prices can change at the drop of a hat. ®