Intel’s MMX Chip Is Out of the Box

SAN FRANCISCO — Intel Corp. on Wednesday unveiled its anxiously awaited MMX Pentium computer chip, which brings TV-quality video, three-dimensional graphics and better sound to personal computers.

At the same time, about 20 PC makers and 19 software companies announced products using the new chips, with many saying they expect the new technology to boost sales.

Industry analysts said the chip will quickly become the new standard for the industry, allowing Intel to maintain its dominance over the semiconductor market and force other PC component makers to cut prices.

An executive with Micron Electronics Inc., which sells PCs by phone, said the company was receiving an “enormous” number of calls about its new MMX PC.

Compaq Computer Corp., the world’s leading maker of PCs, also announced PCs based on the new chip, as did International Business Machines Corp., Dell Computer Corp. and Gateway 2000.

However, many analysts said the chip--a Pentium with so-called MMX, or multimedia extensions, built in--won’t help PC sales much in the short term, though it might over a longer period. Holiday sales of PCs were very slow this year, and many in the industry are hoping that part of that weakness was due to customers holding out for the MMX.

“I don’t think it will be a quick fix to retail PC market demand,” said Charles Boucher of brokerage UBS Securities. “But over the long term, it will bring in new users.”

He and others said more software created for the chip will be needed in the retail market to fuel sales of the machines.

Santa Clara-based Intel said its aim with the MMX is to persuade more consumers to buy PCs by making the personal computer more fun to use.

“Our whole goal here is to deliver a new level of performance and capability to the consumer,” said Mike Aymar, vice president of Intel’s desktop products group, who demonstrated videoconferencing and game playing on an MMX machine.

Intel Chief Operating Officer Craig Barrett described the MMX effort as part of the “battle for eyeballs” between the PC and TV industries. He said Intel plans to convert its entire microprocessor product line to MMX versions within a year or two.

Intel originally announced it would introduce MMX technology last March, to give computer and software makers time to prepare products that would use the chip.

Pricing for the Pentium MMX is only slightly higher than those without it. Computer makers will be charged $550 for a batch of 1,000 Pentium-MMX 200-megahertz processors, compared with $509 for a batch of 1,000 standard 200-megahertz Pentium chips.

Industry analysts say Intel wants to expand its influence beyond the microprocessor to other areas of the computer, such as modem chips and graphics functions, in order to drive PC prices down while protecting its own profit margins.

By launching the MMX, which can do some of the functions already performed by modem chips and graphics chips, Intel will force suppliers of those chips to cut prices, thereby making PCs more affordable.