Tech
IBM plans to pioneer the sub-£1K PII PC
Look out for the sub-£1,000 Pentium II PC. Systems based on Intel's fastest chips will be available early next year at around the £999 mark - and not just from the cheapest cloners.
IBM Personal Systems Group UK managing director Mike Lunch said he expects his company to deliver low-cost systems early in 1998. Currently, fully-configured systems based on the Pentium II typically cost from about £1,200, suggesting that talk of sub-£1K systems may mean the monitor or other parts are extra.
Intel plans to reduce the price of the Pentium II in February and will be aided by moving the chip to a sub-0.25-micron process. The more efficient process will enable Intel to dispense with the heat sink and make the external cache an internal element of the CPU.