Intel has turned up the heat in the extremely competitive chip-speed race and released a Pentium 4, 2.4GHz chip to an audience that could not care less.

Although certain applications that require this sort of processing power do exist - notably Computer-Aided Design (CAD) - most network managers remain unconvinced that such fast desktop chips can bring them any benefits.

"It's all very well making faster desktop chips," said Patrick Whiting, IT network support manager for a shipping company based in London. "But few of my staff have the need for really powerful processors when the most they do is retrieve and write data to our Unix servers."

Whiting added that he would be more interested in faster server chips and a chipset that could take advantage of the increased speeds. Until then he said he would be sticking to cheap desktop computers so he could keep his budget under control.

The new chips are produced on 300mm wafers using 0.13-micron technology. Intel has reduced the die size by 10 per cent, saying this was its most innovative move by far.

The reduction allows for the chip manufacturer to squeeze out more chips per wafer, which could lead to further price cuts. Intel said it could put five times more products on a single wafer than it could on the initial Pentium 4 processor.

The new chips are based on the company's Northwood processor core which gives the processors a larger 512KB level two cache.

The 0.13-micron manufacturing process reduces size and power consumption compared to older 0.18-micron 'Willamette' Pentium 4s.

"We have enhanced our 0.13-micron process with faster transistors, smaller feature sizes, and 300mm manufacturing efficiencies, while we continue to ramp up production in multiple factories," said Sunlin Chou, senior vice president and general manager at Intel's technology and manufacturing group.

At present only one of the five 0.13-micron fabs producing Pentium 4 chips do so on 300mm wafers. The rest still produce chips on 200mm wafers.

The cynical would say the release is just an elaborate marketing campaign to keep the pressure on rival AMD, which is gaining ground in the desktop space. Intel is keen to keep the company at arm's length.

AMD also has faster chips in the pipeline. It has begun shipping 0.13-micron versions under the name Thoroughbred which will appear first in notebooks before moving into desktops.

KEY POINTS

• Intel has released its new Pentium 4 chip that runs at 2.4GHz
• The new chips use 0.13-micron technology on 300mm wafers
• Users prefer faster server chips over fast desktop chips