Intel's New Celeron Speeds to 466 MHz

Processor manufacturing giant Intel introduced the latest complement to its Celeron lineup this morning with the addition of a 466MHz processor.

Ever since its arrival last year, hordes of gamers have abandoned Intel's Pentium II (and later, Pentium III) in favor of the cheaper Celeron. While originally intended for the value-PC market, the Celeron has been chosen by many gamers as their gaming processor of choice because it can be overclocked. Unlike the 512kb of L2 cache found on its Pentium II and Pentium III cousins, the Celeron's 128kb (the lack of memory accounts for the price difference) is less sensitive to the increase in clock frequency necessary to attain higher speeds.

While not condoned by Intel, this overclockability gives gamers the same performance of high-end processors at a fraction of the cost. The 466MHz Celeron will undoubtedly let gamers push the overclocking threshold even further.

The new Celeron processor ships at a price of US$169 in 1,000 quantities and is available immediately through various retailers and several system integrators, including Hewlett Packard, Quantex and Compaq.