Big vendors gobble up 200 chips

Shipments of 200MHz Pentium chips from Intel will be in short supply this month as direct vendor monoliths have sucked the chip giant dry of the first processors.

As predicted in PC Dealer earlier this year, Dell and Gateway secured the first volume shipments of the 200MHz chip, leaving manufacturers including AST, Compaq, IBM and Hewlett Packard waiting an estimated 20 days for supplies. Most of these companies expect to launch 200MHz PCs towards the end of the month.

Intel acknowledged that the chip is in short supply, but said its original plans were to deliver 166MHz Pentiums in volume in the autumn.

A representative said its position had changed little since earlier this year when it said the 200MHz Pentium was a Christmas chip. That, said the representative, was why it was touted as a consumer processor.

But this week may not be much better for clone CPU manufacturer Cyrix.

Reports from US sources claimed the chip was running too hot in their labs, sometimes requiring several fans to keep it cool. This was firmly denied by Cyrix.

Pricing for the 166MHz and 133MHz Pentiums fell in price at the beginning of August. There are vast quantities of these chips which need selling, but consumers are demanding P200s.