Intel Chips Shatter Old Speed Records

If you bought a new computer for Christmas, this story will make you mad. A few days into the new year, it’s obsolete.

Intel Corp. fulfilled one of its promises to computer buyers this week by launching Pentium microprocessors that are more than twice as fast as the ones it had available at this time last year.

The world’s biggest chip maker on Thursday released 150-megahertz and 166-megahertz versions of its Pentium chip, which serves as the brain behind PCs that run Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software.

The 150-megahertz chip will sell at a wholesale price of $547 and the 166 for $749, enabling them to be built into PCs that cost $2,300 to $2,700, said Michael Aymar, an Intel vice president. Leading computer makers will begin selling the machines this week.

As is customary, the company will cut the prices of its slower chips around 20 percent later this month.