Intel Geyserville due Tuesday

Back in July, in a rare accurate prediction, The Register's erstwhile seeress, Old Mother Chipton, predicted that Intel's Geyserville (aka Speedstep) mobile Pentium IIIs wouldn't arrive until Q1 2000 despite being billed for September '99 shipment. Tomorrow the little poppets are due to be born, initially in 633MHz guise and should set you back a not insignificant $750. That's not for a complete system, just for the processor, so these laptops are very firmly aimed at what Intel likes to call 'early adopters' - that's rich geeks to you and me. But Speedstep chips aren't that easy to label, because unlike boring old Pentium IIIs and Athlons, they have not one, but two speed ratings. In the past if you wanted to double battery life, you had to halve the processor's core frequency. The clever bit with Geyserville is that both clock speed and core voltage can be changed to match the user's requirements of processing power and battery life The deal is that the chips run flat out when connected to the mains, but slow down and reduce core voltage when running on batteries, so the 633MHz Speedsteps will run at around 500MHz when on the move. Battery life should be up anyway, due to the use of 0.18 micron technology which Chipzilla claims reduces power consumption. Intel research indicates that most notebooks are plugged in for 70 per cent of the time and this is how Chipzilla's marketing machine plans to position Speedstep-equipped notebooks - as high powered notebooks which offer performance comparable with a desktop when running on AC power, rather than as a notebook with extended battery life. Users will have the capability to fine tune the voltage and frequency scaling through the Windows control panel to 'choose the balance of performance and battery life that best suits their working style'. Celerons are not expected to have Speedstep until late summer at the earliest. ® See also Intel takes 50% axe to mobile Pentium III prices Geyserville slips a whole quarter in a day Geyserville delayed until post Mother Shipton period What the hell is...Geyserville