As predicted here 10 days back, Intel today will announce the arrival of a 1GHz Pentium III at a speed of one gigahertz and costing $990 in quantitites of 1,000. The company cited a SPECint 2000 benchmark of 410, and a SPECfp2000 score of 284, compared to the Pentium III 800's equivalent of 355 and 256 respectively. The processor, said Intel, will be available initially in SECC2 (Slot One) packaging but at first will only be available in limited quantities. IBM, at least, will sell these machines. There's a link to the Aptiva Series S model here. It costs $3,348, but you can't add it to your shopping cart yet... When AMD announced its 1GHz Athlon last Monday, it said that it would initially ship them to Gateway and Compaq for use in their PCs, and angered some of its loyal channel partners by so doing. However, as we revealed today, it is possible to buy 1GHz Athlons on the open market, albeit at a premium. Intel has not so far announced when 866MHz and 850MHz Pentium IIIs become available. However, according to tec channel, a German site, that will happen this coming Monday. It appears Intel re-arranged its plans for these processors to be able to enter the 1GHz Athlon-Pentium III ding dong. ® See also Scarcity of mobos hit AMD Athlons Intel's little 1GHz secrets AMD puts Intel on 1GHz ropes -- confirmed AMD's 1GHz Athlon arrives this month -- official