How come intel/amd don't create an ultra cheap processor...

[Zebo]

I heard intel sells a cacheless celeron in SE asia for $10-$20- look there. Also AMD has a geode thing similar price.

Maybe you need to take a look at newegg. Set a price filter of like $45 and you'll see a couple processors pop up no problem.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: coldpower27

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: aka1nas
It isn't much cheaper to build a less capable processor than a more powerful one if yields on both are acceptable. The vast majority of the cost of a CPU is in the fabrication facilities, which cost several billion dollars each to build. The marginal cost in materials etc to crank out an individual CPU is pretty low. I read once that the material cost to produce a pentium 4 is somewhere around $23 (wingnut or dmems or someone more familiar could probably give a better estimate). However, they have to amortize the tremendous cost of the fabs over the lifetime of it's production run.

Yes but a P4 has significantly more transistors than say a Pentium III, I'm not sure though but I believe the P4 is larger despite it having a smaller micron process but imagine taking a relatively low transistor count of a Pentium III and creating it agian, say you get 100 yeilds from .15 micro process, well as you go down, you multiply those yeilds by some factor (I don't know) but it could easily be a factor of 5 so you get say 500 yeilds instead of 100, I think thats pretty damn good if you ask me, therefore reducing the price the processor. (I know these numbers aren't even close to being accurate or representative, but you get the idea).

Because you go to smaller fabrication processes, you are able to pack more transistors in the same amount of space, Plus you don't have excess transistors in the P4 relative to the Pentium 3 so it should techincally become even cheaper. It's not like they'd have to redesign the processor or anything, they can just use old tech sheets but make it smaller... It's possible that I'm just making it seem to be to simple...

it doesn't work out this way, you also have packaging cost to add into the mix in addition to the die itself. You also can't jsut keep giving the consumer the same product over and over. IF you just make the processor smaller and not add squat your not increasing performance.

Pentium 3 performance is enough for web surfing, and office, but nowhere near enough for encoding, or gaming.

If you assumed 100mm2 for Pentium 3 on the 0.18 micron process, then on 0.13 micron it would be 60mm2 for a dumb shrink, on 0.09 micron your down 36 mm2, and 21.6mm2 once you reached 65nm as we have now. However the packaging would remain constant, so your not saving that much. You also need to increase performance over time, dumb shrinks alone can't do that.

That is EXACTLY my point. Most people do simple tasks, a PIII 800/1GHZ is plenty for encoding as well, just not as fast as say your rig or my rig. The idea is to make this cheaper and cheaper to eventually these processors could cost around $10 or so, and if they do things right, they could make them faster even if they maintain the same clock speeds.

The packaging could be smaller and fewer pins than that of a P4. The general idea with smaller die sizes is: more transistors in the same area with out spending more money by using up more of the wafer space. If you keep making the same processor with maybe tiny increments in speed increase (either MHZ wise or efficiency wise) but the general idea is to make an ultra cheap CPU, something third worlds could benefit from and people within out own country..

Well, there are already pretty cheap processors on the Market. The value chips from Intel/AMD cost less than $100 bucks retail already, and I think some cost less than $50 to the OEM companies buying in bulk. But remember the cpu is not the entire cost of the PC. Even if you have a $10 cpu, the other cost like memory, mobo, HDD, video card, and especially adding up the MS windows still gonna cost you over $200~$300 bucks. Simply driving down the processor cost is not going to buy you much. Plus remember every companies that sells those components I just memtioned would like to make mony. Company that put those things together want to make money. After all the mark up each company gets, the consumer is gonna pay quite a bit for the final product.

That's why you see when companies like Dell who can use their volume and negotiate better deals on components and drive down the cost putting PC together. That's why they can price their PC to close to $200 level (without OS in some of their sever deal).

So what I am trying to say is you won't achieve your goal of low price PC simply through lowering the price of CPU. There is much more to it when manufacturing a PC.

Well, with this advanced chip, it could be considerably small and at the same time it could quite possibly integrate video and a memory controller all into one, this would make for a killer very low end machine because they would have less components on the motherboard and possibly they could take that technology and put it into more expensive chips. I think there is a lot of unused potential that intel has yet to take advantage of.

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
Well, with this advanced chip, it could be considerably small and at the same time it could quite possibly integrate video and a memory controller all into one, this would make for a killer very low end machine because they would have less components on the motherboard and possibly they could take that technology and put it into more expensive chips. I think there is a lot of unused potential that intel has yet to take advantage of.

Intel have done what you just mentioned already, but instead of putting all the functions on CPU, they put it on the chipset. Did it drove down the price of PC's? Sure it did, remember when back in the days when sub $1000 pc was a big deal? Now we see $300 PC all the time with onboard video, sound, lan.

What I want to stress is that a PC isn't just cpu/mobo, or even the other hardware. Like all manufactured products, the cost of buying each parts, getting each parts to your factory, and assembling the parts together and going through the Quality Control process all cost quite a bit of money. With the price of all hardware going down, the cost of manufacturing goes up as a percentage, and simply try to reduce the cost of hardware even further will not do much to reduce the total cost.

Finally, it will be tough for Intel to sell $10 chip. Even if they can manfucture the chip that cheaply, they still have to recover their R&D investment, cost to package those chips, cost to ship it to the customers like Dell, they also need to make enough money to pay their CEO, CFO...etc the big bucks. So instead of hoping for Intel/AMD to sell $10 chips, it's probably more reasonable to hope companies like Dell can keep on reducing their manufacturing cost, distribution cost...etc.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Well, with this advanced chip, it could be considerably small and at the same time it could quite possibly integrate video and a memory controller all into one, this would make for a killer very low end machine because they would have less components on the motherboard and possibly they could take that technology and put it into more expensive chips. I think there is a lot of unused potential that intel has yet to take advantage of.

Then you have a big chip again and the corresponding yield issues. It wouldn't reduce system cost very much and would be less capable than an extra CPU.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
Well, with this advanced chip, it could be considerably small and at the same time it could quite possibly integrate video and a memory controller all into one, this would make for a killer very low end machine because they would have less components on the motherboard and possibly they could take that technology and put it into more expensive chips. I think there is a lot of unused potential that intel has yet to take advantage of.

Intel have done what you just mentioned already, but instead of putting all the functions on CPU, they put it on the chipset. Did it drove down the price of PC's? Sure it did, remember when back in the days when sub $1000 pc was a big deal? Now we see $300 PC all the time with onboard video, sound, lan.

What I want to stress is that a PC isn't just cpu/mobo, or even the other hardware. Like all manufactured products, the cost of buying each parts, getting each parts to your factory, and assembling the parts together and going through the Quality Control process all cost quite a bit of money. With the price of all hardware going down, the cost of manufacturing goes up as a percentage, and simply try to reduce the cost of hardware even further will not do much to reduce the total cost.

Finally, it will be tough for Intel to sell $10 chip. Even if they can manfucture the chip that cheaply, they still have to recover their R&D investment, cost to package those chips, cost to ship it to the customers like Dell, they also need to make enough money to pay their CEO, CFO...etc the big bucks. So instead of hoping for Intel/AMD to sell $10 chips, it's probably more reasonable to hope companies like Dell can keep on reducing their manufacturing cost, distribution cost...etc.

They could always make their money back for the R&D and other stuff on the more expensive chips. Seriously though, I think it's possible for them to make a $10 chip, sure it costs money to ship it to dell but the thing is though I believe dell pays shipping anyways, once you have this in HUGE quantities for schools and other programs possibly for helping out the poor, they may have huge shipments of these very very light chips, I mean if it's OEM, I don't see how they would have to charge for packaging and all that other garbage since all they're selling is the processor.

I mean a processor is very light, most of the cost is like you said, in order, ; R&D, paying the bills, the supplies needed to create the chips (factories/parts), and then the packaging. Once you take away the majority of that because you are using designs from prior processors, therefore not much R&D is needed, then it becomes something that could very well be cheap. I wouldn't be surprised if processors got close to a dollar, it's really not that hard if you keep building the same crap over and over agian.. The integrated video and memory controller, that could take R&D which would cost money for it initially unless of course they take R&D from either other projects then there isn't really any cost since that R&D was orignially for another product anways...

 

[pm]

As Wingz already mentioned, Via makes a complete CPU, motherboard, video, audio board for less than $150- do a Froogle or Pricewatch search for "via epia". Everything you need to make a sub-$200 computer except memory, power supply, storage and a chassis... which, with a bit of work, you could probably squeeze in for less than $200 total.

Taking a sample from the Froogle results:

VIA EPIA-M10000 C3 1GHz Nehemiah Motherboard
Price: $147.00 - $170.99

Description from eWiz.com: Specifications MFG-PART#: EPIA-M10000 NEHEMIAH **EPIA-M10000 NEHEMIAH** CPU: EMBEDDED VIA C3 1GHZ **NEHEMIAH** CPU CHIPSET: VIA CLE266/VT8235 MEMORY: 1 DDR upto 1GB AUDIO: AC'97 ON BOARD (DOLBY 5.1 6 CHANNEL SOUND) VIDEO: INTEGRATED VIDEO ON-CHIP LAN: 10/100 ETHERNET ON BOARD SLOTS: 1PCI, TV-OUT, USB2.0; IEEE1394 IDE: ATA133/100/66 MINI-ITX: 17CM*17CM **CAN WORK WITH "MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP, CE, LINUX"** **MINIMUM OF 90W POWER SUPPLY IS REQUIRED** ** This item is NOT REFUNDABLE ** ** This item is under MANUFACTUER'S WARRANTY ONLY**.

It's interesting to see this thread on here today of all days... there are rumors circulating that Google is going to make an announcement that it is partnering with a computer company to sell a $200 computer at the CES expo that starts (I believe) today.

http://news.com.com/2061-10802_3-6016810.html?tag=nefd.aof

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
They could always make their money back for the R&D and other stuff on the more expensive chips...

The problem with that is..they can't make as many of the other chips, if they are making a bunch of cheap ones..you can only move so many wafers at a time, so if you are making a bunch of cheap chips, you can't make as many of the more expensive ones..

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

They could always make their money back for the R&D and other stuff on the more expensive chips. Seriously though, I think it's possible for them to make a $10 chip, sure it costs money to ship it to dell but the thing is though I believe dell pays shipping anyways, once you have this in HUGE quantities for schools and other programs possibly for helping out the poor, they may have huge shipments of these very very light chips, I mean if it's OEM, I don't see how they would have to charge for packaging and all that other garbage since all they're selling is the processor.

I mean a processor is very light, most of the cost is like you said, in order, ; R&D, paying the bills, the supplies needed to create the chips (factories/parts), and then the packaging. Once you take away the majority of that because you are using designs from prior processors, therefore not much R&D is needed, then it becomes something that could very well be cheap. I wouldn't be surprised if processors got close to a dollar, it's really not that hard if you keep building the same crap over and over agian.. The integrated video and memory controller, that could take R&D which would cost money for it initially unless of course they take R&D from either other projects then there isn't really any cost since that R&D was orignially for another product anways...

You seem to think that businesses are charities or something. Let's assume for a second that they make your CPU at 10 dollars and sell them for 20 bucks each while the cheapest of the bigger CPUs costs them around 40 bucks and sells for 60. It may sound like it's better to make the cheaper one and just stop producing the more expensive one but it, most likely, would not be worth doing. The main problem with making "cheap" CPUs is that once someone has a PC using one he'd, most likely, keep it until it needs an upgrade and then some. That means that this person would, most likely, NOT buy one of your higher margin CPUs so instead of having a "profit" of 20 bucks on this individual you'd have a "profit" of 10, and I find it very doubtful that your sales volume would double just because PC are suddenly 40 bucks cheaper to produce.

Of course I doubt that such a cheap to produce CPU is even realizable because the silicon costs are not the only cost associated with building the CPUs. Like it has been mentioned before These thing have to be tested, packaged and distributed, all of which add to the costs. What you said about having the more expensive CPUs cover things like plant costs and R&D (which are sunk costs) would only apply if you could be assured that your "high-end" CPU sales would not be affected (ever) by introducing this new product line.

 

[Avalon]

You can get a s754 Sempron 2500+ for little more than $50 + shipping.
Text

Pair that up with a $50 motherboard that has sound, network, and video integrated, and get a case that comes with a 350w or so PSU for another $50 max, 256mb memory for $25, an optical drive for $25, and a HD for $50.

Yes, it's $50 over budget, but you could slim it down with hot deals/rebates/going with used items.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: Avalon
You can get a s754 Sempron 2500+ for little more than $50 + shipping.
Text

Pair that up with a $50 motherboard that has sound, network, and video integrated, and get a case that comes with a 350w or so PSU for another $50 max, 256mb memory for $25, an optical drive for $25, and a HD for $50.

Yes, it's $50 over budget, but you could slim it down with hot deals/rebates/going with used items.

I'm saying though, that processors are too overpower and if they were to make slower procesors that were smaller, I'd be cheaper no matter what you say (exlcuding initiation costs) because less silicon is being used..

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
I'm saying though, that processors are too overpower and if they were to make slower procesors that were smaller, I'd be cheaper no matter what you say (exlcuding initiation costs) because less silicon is being used..

I said it before, and I'll say it again... Intel and AMD do not have extra fab capacity to donate to making a cheap (profitless) part. It's really that simple. There is no economic reason for the corporations to want to do this.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: Avalon
You can get a s754 Sempron 2500+ for little more than $50 + shipping.
Text

Pair that up with a $50 motherboard that has sound, network, and video integrated, and get a case that comes with a 350w or so PSU for another $50 max, 256mb memory for $25, an optical drive for $25, and a HD for $50.

Yes, it's $50 over budget, but you could slim it down with hot deals/rebates/going with used items.

I'm saying though, that processors are too overpower and if they were to make slower procesors that were smaller, I'd be cheaper no matter what you say (exlcuding initiation costs) because less silicon is being used..

You don't seem to get it that the silicon cost is a relatively minor part of the cost of the chip. For them to still turn a profit they would have to still charge about as much as they do now. Would you seriously pay $100 for the equivalent of an 800Mhz Pentium 3 rather than , say $120 for a cheap celeron?

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
Like what they could do is build a processor on the latest micron process like .9 or .65 with as many transistors as say a 600mhz or 800mhz PIII processor or (AMD equivalent of that), since it's such a small processor relative to the ones today, it could incorperate a memory controller and maybe graphics? Maybe even a 1GHZ processor but the idea is that since they're going with a small micron process, they'd be able to output tons of these much cheaper than just rereleasing those old processors since they take up a huge chunk of those wafers...

And yes, I'm assuming I'm going to hear a lot of posters call me names and tell me that I'm completely retarded and my idea lacks sense and yada yada yada, I DON'T CARE, it's an idea that I think would make economical sense, building a processor like this would allow intel to create sub <$200 computers I believe...

They do, theyre called "embedded processors" i believe. I have no idea where they are used though, a 500mhz pIII is too much for a cash machine, but too little for a pc. I did actually see a hole in the wall running windows 95 the other day, i was drunk so im not sure what it was lol.

The point you make about the graphics,memory controller being included i think was tried a few years ago, Cyrix's Media GX <-- wiki has a bit about it. According to that it was successful, and even included sound, but cyrix died so... guess it wasent that big of a success.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: Avalon
You can get a s754 Sempron 2500+ for little more than $50 + shipping.
Text

Pair that up with a $50 motherboard that has sound, network, and video integrated, and get a case that comes with a 350w or so PSU for another $50 max, 256mb memory for $25, an optical drive for $25, and a HD for $50.

Yes, it's $50 over budget, but you could slim it down with hot deals/rebates/going with used items.

I'm saying though, that processors are too overpower and if they were to make slower procesors that were smaller, I'd be cheaper no matter what you say (exlcuding initiation costs) because less silicon is being used..

You don't seem to get it that the silicon cost is a relatively minor part of the cost of the chip. For them to still turn a profit they would have to still charge about as much as they do now. Would you seriously pay $100 for the equivalent of an 800Mhz Pentium 3 rather than , say $120 for a cheap celeron?

Learn to read the thread...:roll: I'm not even going to bother reading this post...

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
Learn to read the thread...:roll: I'm not even going to bother reading this post...

Maybe that's part of the problem... The answer to why Intel and AMD doesn't produce a profitless part has been brought up by a few of us. But you keep asking the question.

 

[dexvx]

For Desktop PC's the market is non-existant:

For $299 you can get a Dell Celeron system, which is miles above any K7 Athlon or Pentium3 operating less than 1Ghz in terms of raw performance.

The only market is for Ultra-Slim or Low Power PC markets, but consumers pay a premium for that. A VIA EPIA system will not be cheaper than a Celeron system made by Dell, but its smaller and consumes less power. Intel released a Shelton ITX system (845G chipset, it was significantly superior to the EPIA), which is a cacheless Pentium-M Banias in Asia, but I don't know how well it fared. There was recently an eBay power-seller selling those for $90 shipped, and I was tempted to buy one.

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: dexvx
Intel released a Shelton ITX system (845G chipset, it was significantly superior to the EPIA), which is a cacheless Pentium-M Banias in Asia, but I don't know how well it fared. There was recently an eBay power-seller selling those for $90 shipped, and I was tempted to buy one.

Wow. If you ever see that again, let me know.

--John

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Wingznut

Originally posted by: dexvx
Intel released a Shelton ITX system (845G chipset, it was significantly superior to the EPIA), which is a cacheless Pentium-M Banias in Asia, but I don't know how well it fared. There was recently an eBay power-seller selling those for $90 shipped, and I was tempted to buy one.

Wow. If you ever see that again, let me know.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=928961&highlight=itx

Referring to this thread, unfortunately, the seller no long sells them.

 

[ND40oz]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Wingznut

Originally posted by: dexvx
Intel released a Shelton ITX system (845G chipset, it was significantly superior to the EPIA), which is a cacheless Pentium-M Banias in Asia, but I don't know how well it fared. There was recently an eBay power-seller selling those for $90 shipped, and I was tempted to buy one.

Wow. If you ever see that again, let me know.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=928961&highlight=itx

Referring to this thread, unfortunately, the seller no long sells them.

Yeah, a bunch of people bought them over in the SFF section of the hardforum, I imagine some of them will be for sale in the future on the forum. They take up to a 512 stick of ddr I believe.

Check out neoware or wyse if you want to see some real world uses for the via chips. I have 400 thin clients coming in to work with a citrix farm. Far more cost effective (for us) for office type apps in the long run then $1000 dollar GX520s that need to be replaced in 3 years. We hope to get 6 to 10 years out of our thin clients running xp embedded.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: dexvx
For Desktop PC's the market is non-existant:

For $299 you can get a Dell Celeron system, which is miles above any K7 Athlon or Pentium3 operating less than 1Ghz in terms of raw performance.

The only market is for Ultra-Slim or Low Power PC markets, but consumers pay a premium for that. A VIA EPIA system will not be cheaper than a Celeron system made by Dell, but its smaller and consumes less power. Intel released a Shelton ITX system (845G chipset, it was significantly superior to the EPIA), which is a cacheless Pentium-M Banias in Asia, but I don't know how well it fared. There was recently an eBay power-seller selling those for $90 shipped, and I was tempted to buy one.

Wow, I'd love one of those. Maybe stick it inside an old NES case, have it using a custom GUI, maybe Linux and use it as an emulation machine.

At first when I saw no cache, I thought it'd be horrible performance, considering you can disable the cache on current cpus in the bios and performance becomes horrible, however since the Shelton is Banias based it still has a very healthy amount of L1 cache. (the original Durons were similar, they had a pitiful 64KB of L2 cache, but the 128KB L1 cache meant they still performed pretty well, actually able to keep up with the P3s of the day in many things clock for clock)

Mind P-Ming me if you ever find out another cheap deal like that on those Shelton setups? I would so jump on it.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: dexvx
For Desktop PC's the market is non-existant:

For $299 you can get a Dell Celeron system, which is miles above any K7 Athlon or Pentium3 operating less than 1Ghz in terms of raw performance.

The only market is for Ultra-Slim or Low Power PC markets, but consumers pay a premium for that. A VIA EPIA system will not be cheaper than a Celeron system made by Dell, but its smaller and consumes less power. Intel released a Shelton ITX system (845G chipset, it was significantly superior to the EPIA), which is a cacheless Pentium-M Banias in Asia, but I don't know how well it fared. There was recently an eBay power-seller selling those for $90 shipped, and I was tempted to buy one.

Raw performance doesn't matter because most people don't play games, most people don't run prime or seti programs, all they do is the basics like word.. Theres no difference between an 800MHZ processor and a 2.4GHZ when it comes to things such as these. Plus, a memory starved 2.4ghz WILL be slower, don't care what you think, than a 800MHZ machine with plenty of memory.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

$92 15" CRT display (cmicomputer.com)
$54 Celeron D 310 (ewiz.com)
$50 Windows 98SE retail (productquest.net)
$44 PC Chips M-960GV (newegg.com)
$39 40 GB hard disk (stalliontek.com)
$29 case/PSU combo (supergooddeal.com)
$15 CD-ROM (serversupply.com)
$14 keyboard/mouse/speakers combo (acortech.com)
$10 128MB PC2700 DDR (ms4me.com)
$347 total

That's the absolute cheapest new PC I can imagine building. As you can see, cutting down the price of the CPU wouldn't get you very far.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: dexvx
For Desktop PC's the market is non-existant:

For $299 you can get a Dell Celeron system, which is miles above any K7 Athlon or Pentium3 operating less than 1Ghz in terms of raw performance.

The only market is for Ultra-Slim or Low Power PC markets, but consumers pay a premium for that. A VIA EPIA system will not be cheaper than a Celeron system made by Dell, but its smaller and consumes less power. Intel released a Shelton ITX system (845G chipset, it was significantly superior to the EPIA), which is a cacheless Pentium-M Banias in Asia, but I don't know how well it fared. There was recently an eBay power-seller selling those for $90 shipped, and I was tempted to buy one.

Raw performance doesn't matter because most people don't play games, most people don't run prime or seti programs, all they do is the basics like word.. Theres no difference between an 800MHZ processor and a 2.4GHZ when it comes to things such as these. Plus, a memory starved 2.4ghz WILL be slower, don't care what you think, than a 800MHZ machine with plenty of memory.

Do you honestly believe some budget 800Mhz system is going to have more memory?

No difference? Ever try WindowsXP running multiple IE windows, e-mail client, AVS, blah blah on a standard 800Mhz system? If you tweak it, you can get good mileage out of it, but since most people don't, its going to run like crap.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: dexvx
For Desktop PC's the market is non-existant:

For $299 you can get a Dell Celeron system, which is miles above any K7 Athlon or Pentium3 operating less than 1Ghz in terms of raw performance.

The only market is for Ultra-Slim or Low Power PC markets, but consumers pay a premium for that. A VIA EPIA system will not be cheaper than a Celeron system made by Dell, but its smaller and consumes less power. Intel released a Shelton ITX system (845G chipset, it was significantly superior to the EPIA), which is a cacheless Pentium-M Banias in Asia, but I don't know how well it fared. There was recently an eBay power-seller selling those for $90 shipped, and I was tempted to buy one.

Raw performance doesn't matter because most people don't play games, most people don't run prime or seti programs, all they do is the basics like word.. Theres no difference between an 800MHZ processor and a 2.4GHZ when it comes to things such as these. Plus, a memory starved 2.4ghz WILL be slower, don't care what you think, than a 800MHZ machine with plenty of memory.

Do you honestly believe some budget 800Mhz system is going to have more memory?

Nothing preventing it from having more memory, the companies could for once make a machine with out any bloatware on it...

No difference? Ever try WindowsXP running multiple IE windows, e-mail client, AVS, blah blah on a standard 800Mhz system? If you tweak it, you can get good mileage out of it, but since most people don't, its going to run like crap.[/quote]
I used to have all of that stuff on a PII 450 system, and that machine for everday tasks was just as fast as my current machine. Infact, the only reason I upgraded was to fix my sister's HDD and to be able to play newer games.

 

[jdangber]

Umm....I don't see the point to this thread. I bought an 800mhz EB PIII for $5 shipped on E-bay 6 months ago. Sorry, I can't see how you're gonna be able to sell a new chip for cheaper than that!

And if all you want is that kind of power, then spending $200 is WAY too much $$$. The computer I built for my inlaws with that chip ran a total of $56, and that includes a 17" CRT moniter (give-away) and a usb printer ($30 Lexmark Z510, yes it costs more than the computer). The other $16 was spent on: a 10 GB seagate HD out of an Xbox ($10), $5 for a stick of 128 mb pc100 ram, and $1 for a usb flatbed scanner (gotta love goodwill red tag specials). The mobo (Intel i810E), case, CDrom, floppy, keyboard, scroll mouse, speakers and power supply were all second hand freebies. It runs windows ME effortlessly, and is HUGE overkill for what they do on it (solitare, wordprocessing, business software).

If all you're wanting is something that can do E-mail/word processing/internet/solitaire, then you don't need 800 Mhz of power. I found a PII 266mhz cpu in the trash, and it can do all of those things. CPU cost: $0. I built a computer for my Grandfather with it using all free parts, (with the exception of the keyboard which cost me $10, but I'm sure I could have waited and found one for nothing). Yes it's slow, but its very stable running windows ME (as stable as that gets at least), and it can browse the internet, play CD's, word process, all that crap.

In short, there's no point to make a new processer at such a low speed, because they already exist in the used market, and are so cheap you can either get them for the price of a six pack of Budlight or for nothing if you just look around. If you need to have brand new equipment, I think the celeron D 310 probably fits your description already. That little bastard can be had at Ewiz for less than $50, and will happily kick the crap out of any 800 mhz cpu when running at its stock 2.13 Ghz clock. You can also take that cpu, put it on a $40 integrated-everything mobo, and overclock to 3.2 Ghz with ease. Socket 478 is now cheaper to build than Socket A. Weird.