Introduction

Filling in the gaps

When Intel first jumped from 800MHz all the way up to 1GHz people asked, "wait, what about the chips between 800MHz and 1GHz?"

Normally, Intel likes to roll out chips in nice 33 or 50MHz increments, but AMD forced Intel into a gigahertz race. AMD won the race, but only by a couple of days. The end result for Intel was a product line up that had a significant hole between 800MHz and 1GHz. Actually, for the computer enthusiast, the 1GHz Pentium 3 might as well not exist since you can only get the processor by buying a complete system through a large OEM such as Dell.

Intel is slowly filling in the 200MHz gap. Two weeks after the release of the 1GHz P3, Intel introduced the 850 and 866MHz chips. Today, Intel is launching the 933EB Pentium 3.

Isn't the 933 already out?

Last week, you may have noticed that a handful of online vendors were already selling P3-933EB processors. Heck, Pricewatch has already had a 933EB category for quite some time now.

Intel normally stocks OEM, reseller, and retail channels right before a new processor launch to allow end users to buy the new chip or systems based on the new CPU immediately after the new processor is announced. Resellers aren't allowed to sell before the launch date, but some vendors are willing to take the risk in the pursuit of profit.

In any case, we've been testing our P3-933EB for the past few days, and we're ready to share our results. In addition to our usual barrage of benchmarks, we have overclocking results and overclocked scores.