No one will be surprised with this news since Intel Celeron processors with 2.0GHz clock-speed saw the light of the day this weekend in Japan (see this news-story). Intel now officially launched the newcomer and biggest vendors started to sell personal computers based on the new CPU. This Celeron is the first processor in the family that is manufactured using 0.13 micron technology and based on simplified version of the Northwood core. Intel Celeron 2.0GHz features 400MHz Quad Pumped Bus and 128KB of L2 cache (I would like to mention that Mobile Celeron CPUs provide 256KB of L2). The novelty is compatible with all Socket 478 mainboards that support the latest Pentium 4 processors. The official price for the new addition to the family is $103 in 1000 units quantities.

Intel decided to go 2.0GHz for their low-end CPUs as soon as possible (“2” is a good number, especially if it is “GHz”) and, as a result, 1.9GHz processor has never appeared. In fact, 2.0GHz Celeron will be the fastest processor in the Celeron family this year. Only in the first quarter of 2003 Santa Clara based CPU maker will unleash its 2.1GHz Celeron. The 2.2GHz Northwood-128 is to follow in the second quarter. Also in the second quarter the company will discontinue its Celeron processors powered by Tualtin-256 core, that stuck at 1.4GHz frequency earlier this year. Generally speaking, in the second quarter 2003 Socket 370 will be totally dead. Remember that Intel already stopped to supply its Pentium III processors this August.