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7/00
Internet Explorer 5.01 SP1 was re-released on July 6th following a withdrawal of the original release on June 22nd. This release contains numerous bug fixes, including security updates, and a new Java Virtual Machine. IE 5.01 SP1 also comes with Outlook Express 5.5. It should be noted that this release contains a bug which breaks the help facility in Office 2000. To fix this, change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Version from 5.00.3103.1000 to 53103.1000.
Internet Explorer 5.5 was released on July 12th. New features for this release include a Print Preview feature along with improved support for Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). It should be noted that only the Web Browser and Scripting component will be updated if you are running Windows 2000. If you wish to upgrade Outlook Express or any of the other IE related components you must first install either Windows 2000 SP1 or IE5.01 SP1. This problem only affects users of Windows 2000 - all components are updated on Windows 9x and NT4. Updating all components was apparently not possible due to Win2k's Windows File Protection feature.
Intel Price Cuts occurred on July 16th. See the CPU Prices page for additional information.
Windows Media Player 7 was released on July 18th.
ATI Radeon 256 started shipping on July 19th. See the April 2000 Roadmap entry for additional details.
Windows 2000 Datacenter RC1 was released on July 26th.
nVidia Quadro2, the Workstation version of the GeForce2 GTS, was released in late July. Designed to replace the NV10GL-based Quadro graphics card, the NV15GL Quadro2 is targeted at professional graphics users and CAD/CAM systems. Boards based around this chipset are only expected to be made by nVidia and Elsa.
ALI DDR chipsets were announced on July 26th. ALI will be producing both AMD Athlon (ALi MAGiK) and Intel (Aladdin Pro 5) DDR chipsets for both mobile and desktop CPU's featuring AGP4x, PC100/133 SDRAM, PC1600/2100 DDR-SDRAM, ATA100, 3Gb memory support and PowerNow! (for Athlon). These chipsets will be shipping in Q4.
Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 was released on July 29th. This release rolls up all the current 'SP1' hotfixes, which include a number of setup bugs, 35 Access Violations, 5 memory leaks, 12 Stop errors and some security issues. SP1 also includes Outlook Express 5.5 along with Internet Explorer 5.01 SP1 (5.00.3103.1000).
Pentium III Xeon 933 with 256Kb L2 cache was released in July.
Pentium III 1133 was released in limited quantities on July 31st. The release is similar to that of the 1Ghz PIII which occurred on March 8th, in that only large OEM's will be able to source these processors and even they will only be able to receive very limited quantities. It should be noted that even the 1Ghz PIII will not be available in quantity until the release of the next cC0 Coppermine stepping in September.
8/00
Microsoft Office XP Beta 1, formally known as Office 10, was released on August 4th. See the final release Roadmap entry for additional information.
Netscape 6 PR2 was released on August 8th.
Windows 2000 Datacenter was released to manufacturing on August 11th. In addition to those features present in Windows 2000 Advanced server, Datacenter includes support for 4-node clustering, 64GB of memory, load balancing, and 32-way SMP.
AMD Price Cuts occurred on August 14th. See the CPU Prices page for additional information.
nVidia GeForce2 Ultra was announced on August 14th, with initial card shipments expected in September. The GeForce2 Ultra is built around the GeForce2 GTS core, but is based on an improved 0.18micron process. The GeForce2 Ultra features a clock speed of 250Mhz, which gives a peak fill rate of 1Gpixel/s and 2Gtexels/s, and is paired with 230Mhz DDR memory producing a memory bandwidth of 7.36Gb/s. The clock speed increase also increases the T&L capabilities of the card which rise from 25Mtriangles/s in the GeForce2 GTS to 31Mtriangles/s in the GeForce2 Ultra.
GeForce2 Ultra boards are also expected to feature an external TMDS, overriding the internal TMDS of the GeForce2 chip, which allows resolutions of 1600x1200 and more and fixes incompatibilities with certain DVI flat panels.
Compared to a standard GeForce2 GTS, the fill rate and T&L capabilities have improved by 25% (200-250Mhz core clock, 800Mpixels/s,1600MTexels/s - 1Gpixel/s,Gtexels/s, 25-31Mtriangles/s) and the memory bandwidth by 39% (effectively 333-460Mhz, 5.2-7.36Gb/s). As memory bandwidth is more of a performance bottleneck than raw fill rate, the improved memory specification shows itself in significantly improved performance when running at a 32bit colour depth in high resolutions. Initial benchmarks show that the speed increase over a 64Mb GeForce2 GTS is around 40% at 1600x1200x32 and 30% at 1600x1200x16 with a high end 1Ghz processor. The performance delta will, of course, reduce with resolution, colour depth and CPU speed. Initial overclocking attempts have produced core clock speeds of around 285Mhz and memory clock speeds of around 250Mhz (with 4ns DDR memory which is rated for 250Mhz).
Boards built around the GeForce2 Ultra are expected to cost in the region of $500.
Transmeta Crusoe TM5600 processor was released on August 17th. The TM5600 is a high-end version of the TM5400 and will initially run at 700Mhz. The TM5600 features 144Kb of L1 cache, 512Kb of on-die L2 cache, and supports SDRAM at 66-133Mhz and DDR-SDRAM at between 100 and 166Mhz. The TM5600 is built on a 0.18 micron process and uses around 10% less power than the TM5400, which is built on a 0.22 micron process, despite its superior specification. For more information about the Crusoe series of processors, take a look at Transmeta's Roadmap entry in Q1 2000.
Pentium III Xeon 1Ghz (256Kb L2) is expected to be announced on August 22nd.
Nintendo Gamecube (N-Cube), formally known as Dolphin, was unveiled on August 24th, with the final launch expected in July/October 2001.
Intel Price Cuts occurred on August 27th. See the CPU Prices page for additional information.
AMD Thunderbird 1.1Ghz was released on August 28th.
Pentium III 1133 was withdrawn on August 28th due to instability problems.
9/00
AMD Duron 750 was released on September 5th.
Matrox G450 started shipping in September. See the announcement Roadmap entry for more details on this chipset.
3dfx Voodoo 4 4500 started initial shipments on September 12th. The Voodoo 4 series feature single-chip implementations of 3dfx's VSA-100 architecture and are aimed at the mid range gaming market. Note that T-Buffer effects will not be available on boards in the Voodoo 4 range, as multiple chips are required to enable this facility. Output will be provided by a 350Mhz RAMDAC. It is worthwhile noting that the V4 will deliver a higher performance than a V3 with equivalent fill-rate as this fill rate will be available at all times - the V3 will only provide this fillrate in multi-texturing situations where the second TMU will be utilised.
The Voodoo 4 4500 features 32Mb of SDR memory and is available for both AGP and PCI, delivering 333Mtexels/s. Initial benchmarking of the V4-4500 has shown that its performance is around that of a card based around an S3 Savage 2000, i.e. somewhere between a TNT2 Ultra and an SDR GeForce 256.
Mac OS X Public Beta is expected to be released on September 13th.
Windows Me (Millennium Edition), the successor to Windows 98 SE, was released to retail channels on September 14th following its RTM in June. Although the Windows Millennium kernel initially evolved from the NT kernel, this idea was scrapped early in its development cycle and the product is now based around Windows 9x code. The focus of Windows Millennium development is on improved simplicity, digital media & entertainment, home networking and a better online experience.
New features present in Windows Millennium include Self-healing, improved and simplified setup, significantly improved boot times, Internet Explorer 5.5 and DirectX 7.1. The User Interface enhancements provided by Desktop V.2 and Windows Activity Centers, which were originally planned for Millennium, are now postponed until the next consumer version of Windows which is codenamed Neptune and expected in 2001.
Millennium's 'Self healing' technology will automatically reinstall any damaged or deleted components of the Windows installation without ambiguous error messages. The initial setup time goals are under 15 minutes for a retail installation and under 5 minutes for a pre-configured machine.
On legacy free machines Millennium will boot in 15 seconds and resume in 5 seconds. These improvements are possible because Windows will no longer detect hardware on each boot and instead will only load the pre-configured device drivers.
DOS will be relegated to the virtual machine command prompt, with Autoexec.bat and Config.sys not being processed on startup and no Real-mode DOS prompt will be available. These changes should improve robustness although real-mode device drivers and applications (e.g. Partition Magic) will no longer run.
Although Windows Millennium will no longer feature Desktop V.2, the user interface is improved and will closely that of resemble Windows 2000. The My Pictures folder, located within My Documents, will feature an image preview tool as well as access to your scanner or digital camera.
Auto-update is a new feature which automatically updates your Windows installation when you are connected to the Internet. If this facility is not to your liking, it can be switched off. Millennium will also be shipped with a number of Internet connectable games including Checkers, Backgammon, Hearts, Reversi, and Spades. A new CD player, sound/multimedia player and Movie Maker application will also be included.
The price of Windows Me will be the same as that for Win98SE - $209 for the full retail pack and $109 for the upgrade from Windows 9x. A Step-Up version will also be available for Windows 98 and 98SE users (i.e. not 95) for the cheaper price of $59.95.
Intel Coppermine Stepping 3 (cC0) was released in September, initially for PIII Xeon's with 256Kb L2 cache but moving on to PIII's and Celeron's towards late October. In addition to Errata fixes, cC0 will include a 5% die size reduction (from 104.6sqmm to 90sqmm) which is expected to allow a few more Pentium III speed grades (above 1Ghz) to be released. The cB0 stepping does not allow volume production of speed grades above 933Mhz.
Pentium III 1Ghz is expected to be released in volume during September, following the release of the cC0 stepping.
VIA Apollo Pro 266 chipset was announced on September 20th, but mass manufacturing did not begin until November. The Apollo Pro 266 is the first DDR chipset to be released for Intel platforms. Features include 66/100/133Mhz FSB support, PC66/100/133 SDRAM/VC SDRAM and PC1600/2100 DDR SDRAM, 6 channel AC97 Audio, an integrated MC97 modem, integrated 10/100 BaseT Ethernet controller, 6 USB ports, ATA100 and Dual Processor support. The Apollo Pro 266 also features VIA's V-Link bus - a high bandwidth (266Mb/s) bus between the North and South bridge. V-Link provides twice the bandwidth of the normal N-S bridge bus.
VIA KT266 chipset was announced on September 20th, but did not become available in quantity until Late Q1. See the Q1 2001 Roadmap entry for additional information.
Mobile Pentium III 800 & 850 were released on September 25th. Both processors run at 1.65v in maximum performance mode and drop back to 1.35v in battery optimised mode (at clock speeds of 650 and 700Mhz respectively). Power consumption for both processors is <2W when running off battery and <0.5W when in power saving mode.
Mobile Celeron 700 was released on September 25th.
AMD K6-2E+ processor was released on September 25th at clock speeds from 350-500Mhz. The K6-2E+ is essentially an embedded version of the K6-2+ (128Kbon-die L2 cache), intended for use in set top boxes, telecommunications equipment etc. The K6-2E+ is available in two forms - a standard part (clock speeds 400-500Mhz) with a core voltage of 2V and a low powered version (clock speeds 350-450Mhz) with core voltages ranging from 1.4 to 1.8v.The K6-2E+ is released in a 321pin PGA package format.
AMD K6-3E+ processor was released on September 25th at clock speeds from 400-550Mhz. The K6-3E+ is the embedded version of AMD's K6-3+ (256Kb on-die L2 cache) mobile processor. Like the K6-2E+, this processor will be available in standard 2V (clock speeds 400-550Mhz) and low powered (clock speeds 400-500Mhz) 1.4-1.8v forms and is available in a 321pin PGA package.
Windows 2000 Datacenter was released on September 26th. See the Windows 2000 Roadmap entry for additional details.
VIA KM133 chipset was announced on September 26th, but mass manufacturing will not begin until November. See the Q4 Roadmap entry for additional information.
DirectX 8 RC0 was released on September 30th.
