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Does Intel still matter? Yes, but...

David Coursey AnchorDesk

Published: 24 Feb 2003 15:17 GMT

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why I need a 3GHz processor -- or, for that matter, a 2GHz CPU. Sure, Windows XP likes raw horsepower. But my impression is that the OS, if forced to choose, would rather have more memory. And what slows down Microsoft Office, at least for me, isn't the processor -- it's the time required for me to think of what I want to do.

And, sure, if I were a hardcore gamer, for whom a hot-rod box from Alienware, Velocity, or Falcon would be an object of tremendous desire, I might feel differently. But I'm not, and the faster Intel makes processors, the less I seem to care.

Which raises the question: is Intel irrelevant?

During the last half of the 1990s, Intel tried to create new uses for its processors, pushing technologies and products that would eat as many processor cycles as possible. The company was particularly interested in all things video, seeing the editing of home movies as a task that would convince home users to replace their old PCs with something faster. Intel also hoped broadband would drive demand for more CPU cycles. Neither has panned out the way the company might have hoped, at least not in the sense of boosting CPU sales.

The software publishers, what's left of them, haven't helped much, either. Besides games, it's hard to find an application that really requires a faster machine than most of us had three or four years ago. That's particularly true in business, where many 500MHz PCs are still chugging along quite happily -- often running Windows 98.

So Intel seems to have given up -- at least temporarily -- on the search for some fundamental technology that will really change things. Instead, it seems intent on plundering other companies' revenue streams by making its chips do more of the work.

The Intel that presented itself at last week's Intel Developer Forum seems to be one that has given up the search for a fantasy future of 100Mbps broadband everywhere and applications so sophisticated that even a 3GHz CPU wouldn't be enough and has settled into the hard reality: the best way to sell more stuff is to build more of it onto the motherboard.