Earlier this year, The Register reported that large European distributors were being offered Pentium II chips in a bid by Intel to bridge a shocking shortage of its Coppermine Pentium III processors. At the beginning of the year, they were told of widespread availability of the Pentium II 400MHz processor, although their jaws dropped at the idea of actually trying to persuade their system builders and resellers to use it, rather than Pentium IIIs or AMD Athlons. But now, so to speak, we have it from the horse's mouth. According to this Intel page here, which may well become one of the disappeared after this story, the Pentium II processor is the best available processor for the majority of people. The passage in question reads: " Intel® Celeron™ processor 600 MHz is now available! While the Pentium® II processor is the best overall choice for the majority of PC users and applications, the Intel Celeron processor offers the dependability home and business users expect from Intel at an exceptional value." And Intel may well be right. After all, the Pentium II doesn't (didn't?) have that pesky personal serial number (PSN) thingie, and reports of the death of the Pentium II were obviously somewhat premature after the horrendous shortages Intel has suffered for the last three quarters. An Intel representative said: "Unfortunately this is an error on our web site which we will correct as soon as possible. Thank you for drawing our attention to it. "Clearly Pentium III processors offer many benefits over Pentium II processors, including Internet Streaming SIMD extensions, 0.18µ technology enabling on-die cache, lower power consumption, higher speeds and packaging options to name but a few".® See Also Intel Pentium II rises from the dead So farewell then, PSN Intel confirms huge Coppermine shortage System builders take brunt of Coppermine shortages