1.13GHz PIII delayed again, more on Intel's plans

This Techweb article from this past Friday has some pretty good info on the delay of 1.13GHz PIII, as well as a good rundown of Intel's planned schedule for releasing the various PIII and P4 speed grades. Here's the important part:

Intel's plan is to release the new 1.13-GHz chip in a "flip-chip" FC-PGA package only, which will use an entirely new stepping, the Intel spokesman said without elaboration. The chip will still apparently be manufactured upon an 0.18-micron process. A second 1.13-GHz chip, the Coppermine-T, is expected a quarter later, according to sources and other published reports, but will use a finer 0.13-micron process. The delay will also provide a neat segmentation between the Pentium III and Pentium 4. While the Pentium 4 is expected to ramp from 1.4-GHz and 1.5-GHz at its launch Nov. 20 upwards to about 2.0-GHz in the second quarter of next year, OEMs aren't clear on the minimum speed of the Pentium 4 at the time.

We'll see just how much of a performance gap there'll be between the 1.13GHz PIII and the P4 at its initial release clock speed. I suspect that the difference between a 1.13PIII and a 1.4GHz P4 isn't going to be too stunning, seeing as how the P4's lower IPC (instructions per clock) means that it'll really have to pull out ahead of the PIII in clock speed before it's performance gets drastically better than the old design. This issue may have had an impact on their decision to delay the 1.13GHz PIII until the P4 is around 2.0GHz. I mean, they wouldn't want people benching the 1.13GHz PIII against the 1.4GHz P4 and going, "where's the beef?"