Intel Corp announced yesterday that it has begun shipping production versions of the Pentium microprocessor, but as the company already indicated, it will not be talking price until May, when it frees its customers to start announcing machines. Manufacturers – such as Compaq Computer Corp, which rushed to discuss its Pentium plans in general terms, say they expect their first Pentium machines to list for as little as $4,500, half the price set for early model 80486 machines in 1989. The Wall Street Journal hears that the company has listed the 60MHz version at $905 for 1,000-up, and gone as low as $850 each for its best customers; the 66MHz version is said to cost $1,000. Intel expects to ship hundreds of thousands of Pentiums in 1993, and reach a manufacturing rate of 1m in 1994. Yesterday’s edition of US PC Week says that its test lab found that the Pentium runs identical software about 80% faster than a similarly clocked 80486 in tests of an Intel-configured Pentium evaluation system.
