According to Heise.de, Intel wants to stop positioning its Pentium III as a solution for desktop PCs. Instead Intel plans to actively push its Pentium 4 into the desktop market. However, in this case Pentium 4 based systems should become considerably cheaper compared with what they cost now. As we have already told you, Intel has already dropped the cost of its Pentium 4 CPU quite tangibly, however, this may turn out insufficient for this processor to win the desktop market formerly occupied by Pentium III. Therefore, the prices are expected to get reduced even more in the near future. Namely, the cost of systems with the youngest Pentium 4 CPUs is said to drop down to $1000 by the Q4 2001. Moreover, the launching of SDRAM enabled Brookdale chipset in Q3 2001 should add to the growing popularity Pentium 4.
As for the 0.13micron Pentium III (Tualatin), which should finally come out in Q3 2001, it is expected to be not that demanded in this market sector, in fact. It will be used mostly in mobile PCs. As for desktops, it should become widely spread here only in 2002, when Intel Celeron CPUs acquire Tualatin core.
Nevertheless, Brookdale is very unlikely to help Pentium 4 conquer the world. Equipped with SDR PC133 interface this chipset will be targeted only for value market, because of the low memory bus bandwidth provided. The DDR version of this chipset due in 2002 is rumored to support only PC1600 memory. So, most Pentium 4 systems sold in the end of the year will work with RDRAM memory. That is why Intel’s brilliant ideas may never come true, if RDRAM prices doesn’t drop down significantly.