It may be a year before the 3GHz chip, expected this week, and its hyperthreading feature catch on among business buyers, but gamers and affluent consumers will have them both on hand for the holidays.
PC makers such as Dell Computer will offer the 3GHz chip in their performance-oriented desktop models, which sell for US$2,000 and above. A Dell representative earlier this week confirmed that the company would offer the new chip when it is made available.
But the manufacturers are also expected to pair the new chip with a number of other top-of-the-line components to form high-test, special-edition desktops that sell for US$3,000 or more.
These machines will include the new Pentium 4, along with 512MB to 1GB of RAM, hard drives ranging from 120GB to 200GB, DVD burners, large flat-panel displays with screen sizes of 17 inches or greater, and ATI Technologies' new Radeon 9700 Pro graphics board. Many manufacturers made similar offers with the launch of the 2GHz Pentium 4.
But the newest 3GHz special-edition desktops will likely cost less than some of their predecessors, the first 1GHz PCs. Some of the desktops that included the first 1GHz Athlon and 1GHz Pentium III chips sold for thousands more than this week's expected crop--some for as much as US$5,999.
Meanwhile, desktop PCs with Advanced Micro Device's new Athlon XP 2700+ and 2800+ chips are also expected to begin shipping fairly soon. The 2700+, for example, will be available from major manufacturers this month, AMD has said.
While they will offer the new systems, the manufacturers are somewhat realistic as to their sales prospects. They acknowledge that they'll target only the kind of PC buyer who wants to do much more than just check e-mail and browse the Web.
Indeed, the audience for special-edition desktops is getting even smaller, as many deep-pocketed consumers opt to spend the US$2,000 to US$3,000 they would pony up for such a desktop on a notebook instead.
But building high-end desktop is still worth the effort for manufacturers, as the high-end PCs are generally more profitable than are more commonplace desktops, and the machines can also create a so-called halo effect, boosting the performance image of a PC maker.
6%
3%
But will Microsoft Office run fast enough? :-)