Intel ships low-spec P4s for low-cost PCs

Intel has begun shipping a pair of low-cost Pentium 4 5xx class CPUs that have yet to be added to its public price list. The chip giant is also preparing to offer a low-price dual-core Pentium D 8xx processor in two months' time.

The chip, the PD 805, will be clocked at 2.66GHz and support a maximum frontside bus speed of 533MHz, an intel spokesman told Xbit Labs. The chip is due to ship in March.

To that we can add the single-core Pentium 4 517 and 524, both listed in internal retail-oriented documentation recently seen by Reg Hardware and now shipping. Neither appears on Intel's official price list, but they have begun to turn up on a variety of online suppliers' sites for around $150 and $230, respectively. Both are pitched at PCs set to come in at around the $599 mark.

Both budget Socket 775 P4s support 533MHz FSB speeds and are clocked to 2.93GHz and 3.06GHz, respectively. Both contain 1MB of L2 cache and support HyperThreading. They are the successors to the P4 516 and 519 which emerged in a variety of PCs toward the end of 2005. ®