This slashdot story (and the Ars story it ripped off) seem to say that only servers are getting the new 64-bit Pentium 4 Prescotts now. That is false. In case you missed it, Dell is now shipping the Dell Precision 370 workstation with 64-bit Pentium 4 (EM64T) at 3.2GHz, 3.4GHz, and 3.6GHz.
Also, Anandtech just posted a new roadmap with some info on upcoming 64-bit Pentium 4 CPU/chipsets for the desktop. The Intel 925XE chipset (with 1066MHz FSB) will ship in October along with 64-bit Pentium 4 "F" processors. "F" supposedly means it's a 64-bit Prescott.
That's a shame. If you'd stuck to the end of the course, you might be able to type 80 WPM today, which can be very useful.
Maybe he can type 80 wpm today. Note that he said he could type 35 wpm when he stopped taking the class. So when he stopped, he had already learned where to initially place his eight fingers ("asdfjkl;"), how to use his thumb to space, and how to use his pinkies to shift. After learning this much, you can pick up speed by just typing a lot.
I believe typing is an important skill, but not much classtime is needed. When a student has attained the skills I described above, he/she can stop taking the class and become a fast typist on his/her own.
The benchmark runs the following applications: Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002, Netscape Communicator (Mozilla 5), McAfee VirusScan 5.13, WinZip 8.0, Macromedia Flash 5.0, and Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1... MobileMark also includes a conditioning run that prepares a notebook's battery for testing by draining the battery completely, then requiring that the battery be fully charged before an official test run can commence.
You mentioned DVD watching, so I excluded uber-portables without built-in optical drives from my quick search. Here's what I found among relatively recent reviews:
The Celeron is a severly crippled chip, unlike the Duron, which is a respectably performing budget processor. It only has 128KB cache, which is CPU sucide on a P4 core...One would be much better of with an Athlon XP, Duron, or a slow P4 as a budget processor.
He said he had a Celeron laptop. For a budget laptop processor, I think the best choice for most people is the Celeron M. It shares the same architecture as the Pentium M (Banias and Dothan), but has "only" 512KB L2 cache and no "Enhanced Speedstep."
Unfortunately, Celeron M notebooks aren't as cheap as notebooks with cheap desktop chips. The HP Compaq nx9020 (1.3GHz Celeron M) "starts at" $800, but that's with Intel integrated graphics, CD-ROM, and 128MB of shared memory. But for those that want a budget laptop with high performance, low power, and thin-and-light dimensions, a Celeron M is probably well worth the extra money.
Intel needs to get a clue, and develop a set of benchmarks that truly show real-world performance. AMD has done quite a good job with their "+" rating. (EG, my desktop is an Athlon 2000+)
And AMD f*cked up the "+" rating with the Sempron. The Sempron 3100+ has the same core (Newcastle) and clock speed (1.8GHz) as the Athlon64 2800+, but has half the L2 cache (256K vs 512K) and no 64-bit support. If the Sempron 3100+ is so obviously inferior to the Athlon64 2800+ (due to less cache and no 64-bit), then why the heck does it have a higher "+" rating? Similarly, the Sempron 2800+ is identical to the Athlon XP 2600+, yet it too has a higher "+" rating.
To me, Intel's new model numbers make more sense. Its new Celeron D processors have lower model numbers (3xx) than its Pentium 4 processors (5xx). The Pentium 4 560 has higher performance than the Pentium 4 540. This seems more straightforward, to me, than AMD's "+" rating.
Of course to top it all off Intel claims that all of its bus technology is "proprietary", this is why nVidia hasn't made an nForce chipset for the P4 yet. AMD on the other hand has a much more open policy and actively encourages 3rd party motherboard and chipset makers. A policy which has worked very well for AMD to date.
Intel's NetBurst bus may be proprietary, but I don't think that's the reason NVIDIA hasn't made a chipset yet for the Pentium 4. Intel has licensed the bus to other 3rd party chipset makers like ATI, SiS, VIA, and ALi and they have all been shipping P4 chipsets for some time.
Is the Geforce 4 MX supported? I know that origionally Carmak wanted to require programable shaders, is that still the case, or did he relent and support the fixed function pipline that the Geforce 4 MX line inherited from the Geforce 2?
Last I heard, id intended on including at least some GF4 MX cards on the minimum requirements list, which would indicate that a GF2 or GF2-Ultra would be even more playable (which is to say not very).
I'm just speculating here, but maybe the GeForce4 MX (and not GeForce2) was included on the minimum requirements list because it "kind of" supports Pixel Shader 1.1 (which GeForce2 lacks). I say "kind of" because the GF4 MX's T&L unit requires help from the CPU to process vertex shaders (think Winmodems).
Maybe John Carmack got the GF4 MX working on the NV20 path (Geforce 3) by using its limited pixel shader support. So maybe a GF4 MX is the minimum GPU that uses vertex shaders and makes DOOM 3 "look good."
I couldn't find any good information on NVIDIA's site, but here's one review that compares the GeForce4 MX with the GeForce2 Ti (including a little info on pixel shader support): MSI GF4MX420, GF4MX440
and GF4MX460
Video Cards Review
Dells work-around is to sell the machine without a OS installed.
Am I missing something? Several posts in this forum have said that Dell only offers the n series without an OS installed and a copy of FreeDOS. However, Dell offers five Precision n series workstations with Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS factory installed.
Are these machines being excluded because they are "workstations" and supposedly not desktops? Isn't the low end Precision 360n close enough to a "desktop" to qualify? It starts at $849 uses the Intel 875P chipset (Pentium 4). The only thing about this model is you're forced to choose a "workstation" graphics card (Quadro or FireGL).
Why couldn't they include mp3 and AAC support to encourage people to switch?
I hear ya. I expected better from Sony, especially after they announced almost a year ago that the PSP (PlayStation Portable) will include mp3 and AAC support (along with ATRAC3 Plus). Back then, Sony reps were calling the PSP the "Walkman for the 21st Century." If you forgot the PSP's specs, here's a link: Sony's PSP specs released
Like everyone else here, I guess it's a DRM thing. That, and the fact that the PSP will probably store mp3 and AAC files on relatively small Memory Sticks. High-capacity drives probably scare Sony's Music division.
The fastest $117 2.8ghz celeron got the shit kicked out of it by a lowly $55 Athlon 2400XP. Who in their right mind would buy one of these chips?
Looking at Anandtech's performance tests, who in their right mind would conclude that the Celeron D 335 (2.8GHz) "got the shit kicked out of it" by the Athlon XP 2400+? The new Celeron seemed pretty competitive to me.
Here's how the Celeron D 335 actually performed against the XP 2400+:
Business Winstone 2004
2400+: 19.1 Celeron: 18.8
2400+ 1.6% faster
Content Creation Winstone 2004
2400+: 24.8 Celeron: 24.5
2400+ 1.2% faster
DivX 5.1 Encoding
2400+: 31.7 Celeron: 32.9
Celeron 3.8% faster
Aquamark 3
2400+: 36.2 Celeron: 38.0
Celeron 5% faster
Gunmetal Benchmark 2
2400+: 32.9 Celeron: 33.5
Celeron 1.8% faster
Halo
2400+: 48.2 Celeron: 49.9
Celeron 3.5% faster
Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour
2400+: 27.5 Celeron: 31.0
Celeron 1.3% faster
Simcity 4
2400+: 63.5 Celeron: 63.5
even
Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
2400+: 34.6 Celeron: 43.4
Celeron 2.5% faster
Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby
2400+: 178.8 Celeron: 191.5
Celeron 7.1% faster
Unreal Tournament 2003 Botmatch
2400+: 58.9 Celeron: 57.7
2400+ 2.1% faster
Quake III Arena
2400+: 255.1 Celeron: 289.4
Celeron 13.4% faster
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
2400+: 64.5 Celeron: 62.1
2400+ 3.9% faster
3D Studio Max Render Time
2400+: 249 Celeron: 287
2400+ 13.2% faster
Quake III Compile Times
2400+: 18.9 Celeron: 22.2
2400+ 14.9% faster
The Northwood-based Celeron sucked, but the new Prescott-based Celeron D is a good performer for a budget CPU. Athlon XP is a dying platform (to be replaced by Sempron). The Celeron D 335 will drop in price as faster models are released. Let's do another comparison when the Celeron D gets its first speed bumps.
What I'm really waiting for is Celeron D on LGA775 and Sempron on Socket 939.
Will someone PLEASE remind me of Why I would ever pay $499 for a Pentium 4 3.4Ghz Prescot, or $990 for an 800Mhz 2MB Extreme? I can hop over to AMD and get a better processor for less
You didn't tell us how you would use your computer. If media encoding was very important to you, then you might choose Prescott over Athlon64. If you wanted PCI-Express x16 and x1 slots, DDR2 memory slots, free HD 8 channel audio, and four SATA ports, then you might choose Prescott (not necessarily 3.4GHz). A computer is much more than just the CPU.
Am I the only Slashdot reader that thinks chipsets are more important than CPUs when building a computer?
Will motherboard manufacturers come out with AMD-compatible boards that sport PCI-Express and the other (non-CPU) new features that are talked about in this article?
Here's a link to AMD's position on the future of PCI-Express and PCI-X:
AMD expects PCI-Express to be adopted first as the next generation of graphics technology, replacing AGP 8X. In 2004, AMD expects PCI-Express graphics to debut in workstations, while predicting that PCI-X 266 will be strongly adopted in servers for higher-speed I/O card capabilities. Because the success of PCI-X 533 will likely be gated by the availability of 533MHz adapter cards and devices, AMD believes that servers requiring I/O bandwidth in excess of PCI-266's capabilities will begin to feature PCI-Express options in the second half of 2004 and into 2005.
As for DDR2, just remember that Opteron and Athlon64 have on-die memory controllers.
This next incarnation of processors could speed up the innovation of watercooling.
I think it has already started. Did you know that Sony and Apple have both implemented watercooling in their newest systems? 'Looks like that transition to 90nm is a bitch. Here's the links:
I'd also like to add that a 4:3 aspect ratio is probably much better than 16:9 for viewing photos. I think the photo viewing/storing capabilities of this device are underemphasized.
The feature that jumped out at me was "USB On the Go to attach to digital cameras." This seems like a great digital camera accessory for portable photo storage and viewing/previewing.
I'm still not convinced that viewing battery-sucking video on a 3.5" screen will be all that great (I admit I haven't tried it yet). It might be okay for previewing video, but for actually watching video I find more value in the video-out connections for watching on an external screen.
what about the people building thier own computer and selected a smaller processor because it wass afordable and then plan on buying a better one when availible.
I hear ya. Since my current processor needs are met by today's "value" processors, I have considered building an Intel Celeron-based system using the Intel 865PE chipset or an AMD Duron-based system using the nVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400Gb chipset. Then a year or two later, I can buy a much faster Pentium4 or AthlonXP when prices are way lower.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Athlon64 platform will not allow us to install "low end" processors into motherboards made for "high end" processors. I read on Anandtech's review that AMD's value line of processors (including an upcoming 32-bit only version of Athlon64) will all be Socket 754 processors while future Athlon64's will eventually all be Socket 939.
What I'm pretty sure this means is that I will not be able to install AMD's Athlon64-based value processor into a Socket 939 motherboard, then install a real Athlon64 4000+ a year or two later when prices are way lower. Even though AMD's "value" processors will be based on the same Athlon64 core, I'm pretty sure socket converters (e.g. slockets, socket370 to fc-pga converters) will not work because of the different on-chip memory controllers (single-channel vs. dual-channel).
So there goes my plan on building a Socket 939 system using AMD's "value" processor, then upgrading to Athlon64 later. Now I'm considering building an Intel Socket 775 Grantsdale-based system with DDR2, PCI-Express, BTX form factor, and a (I'm not kidding) Prescott-based Celeron 325 processor (2.53GHz, 533MHz bus, 256KB L2 cache). By the time I need more processing power, a 4GHz+ Pentium4 (1066MHz bus, x86-64) will be reasonably priced.
...I don't think picoBTX is intended for SFF machines, according to an earlier Anandtech article picoBTX is still 8" x 10.5", awfully big for an SFF machine.
That doesn't seem that much bigger than a typical Shuttle XPC board (the case is 7.9" x 11"). Also, a picoBTX SFF machine will be 3" high (Type II) while a typical Shuttle XPC is 7.1" high. That same Anandtech article shows a Type II picoBTX reference system that's 6.9 liters in volume. That's about 30% smaller than that typical Shuttle XPC (200mm * 180mm * 280mm = 10.1 liters).
Note that the Shuttle XPC requires a proprietary heat-pipe cooling system and a special small, quiet power supply to keep the system cool and quiet. On the other hand, improved cooling and noise reduction are built into the BTX spec. Theoretically, any computer maker will be able to easily build a tiny, cool, and quiet SFF picoBTX machine based on Intel's 6.9-liter reference system.
While most of the tested codecs/formats showed good performance at 128 kbps, this test alone shows that none can give transparency ( transparency == unability to distinct from the original source for most people and under good conditions) at this bitrate, contrary to what many think. People who think this is important should demand higher quality files from famous online music services (like iTunes Music Store).
But the online music stores might not be using the same free encoders that were used in this 128kbps listening test. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm assuming the iTunes Music Store uses a pro-level AAC encoder rather than the free encoder distributed with iTunes. Also, I know at least one famous music store (Musicmatch Downloads) is providing higher quality files than 128kbps (160kbps WMA).
This listening test gives very useful information for those that rip and encode their own compressed music files, but it might not give an accurate representation of the quality of online music store files.
He's trained himself since a very early age to see the ball off the bat and then estimate where it will land. He then runs as fast as he can to that spot, and lo and behold the ball is there for him.
Willie Mays also immediately estimated where the ball would land and ran as fast as he could to that spot. But in the strong, swirling winds of Candlestick Park (before they enclosed it), the ball would not always land at that first estimated spot. By getting to the first spot early, Mays would have time to make another estimation.
And hitting talent being thinned should be canceled by the increase in population.
Also:
Non-white players were not allowed in the league until Jackie Robinson in 1947. It took several more years for all teams to consider/accept non-white players.
International talent was hardly utilized before 1960.
MLB did not reach the West Coast until the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved west in 1958. Scouting Western US talent by train was not an easy task.
So not only is the supposed "thinning out" of hitting talent (due to more teams) canceled out by the increase in population -- the available population is much more fully utilized. Cy Young's feats seem a little less impressive when you consider that he did not have to face the best Negro League hitters, foreign hitters, or even all of the talented West Coast hitters.
If next generation's desktop and notebook processors are going to be dual-core, single-cache versions of the Pentium-M's architecture, I wonder how they will "cripple" these chips to produce low-cost Celerons.
It seems like they could "disable" one of the cores and call it a Celeron. However, I don't know if consumers will accept processors with "half" the performance of their mainstream counterparts. On the other hand, a single-core Pentium-M (an impressive, but expensive, performer today) would seem like a good deal for a "budget" processor one or two years from now.
I don't think Intel will just "disable" half the cache like they've been doing since the Celeron 300A (and keep both cores). I think this is unlikely because a dual-core Pentium-M with 1MB of L2 cache (remember, Dothan will have 2MB L2 cache) would be too darn good for a "budget" processor and would cannibalize sales of their mainstream and high-end processors.
However Intel decides to make the new Celerons, it looks like we will have much better low-cost options from Intel than the pathetic Pentium-4 based Celerons with 128MB L2 cache and 400MHz front side bus.
I'm not disagreeing with the spirit of your post, but I have one nit-pick...
So "support" is an update service and the availability of on-line documentation. The "free" update service, by the way, no longer provides updates for Win98 or IE 5, so (2000+) would be more accurate. Nowhere is "support" claimed to be actually getting a question answered, for some strange reason.
Paid incident support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Edition (Me) is available through June 30, 2006.
Critical security updates will be provided on the Windows Update site through June 30, 2006.
.
.
Microsoft will not publicly release non-critical security hotfixes for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, or Windows Millennium Edition. However, customers may request a non-critical security hotfix through On-Demand Security Hotfix support, which is offered for these products through June 30, 2006. When a request is received, Microsoft will investigate the issue and try to provide an appropriate response to the customer.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, Anandtech just posted a new roadmap with some info on upcoming 64-bit Pentium 4 CPU/chipsets for the desktop. The Intel 925XE chipset (with 1066MHz FSB) will ship in October along with 64-bit Pentium 4 "F" processors. "F" supposedly means it's a 64-bit Prescott.
I believe typing is an important skill, but not much classtime is needed. When a student has attained the skills I described above, he/she can stop taking the class and become a fast typist on his/her own.
HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000 (review): 6 hours, 4 minutes (15" 1024x768, 6.2lbs)
Panasonic ToughBook CF-W2 (review): 5 hours, 47 minutes (12.1" 1024x768, 2.9lbs)
HP Compaq Business Notebook nc6000 (review): 5 hours, 32 minutes (14.1" 1024x768, 5.9lbs)
Acer TravelMate 8000 (review): 5 hours, 25 minutes (15" 1400x1050, 6.8lbs)
Tom's Hardware reviewed a Celeron M notebook and, unlike the old P4-based desktop Celeron (128KB L2 cache), it is not at all crippled. Here's a link to the review: Does Everything Have To Be A Centrino? Intel says "No"!
Unfortunately, Celeron M notebooks aren't as cheap as notebooks with cheap desktop chips. The HP Compaq nx9020 (1.3GHz Celeron M) "starts at" $800, but that's with Intel integrated graphics, CD-ROM, and 128MB of shared memory. But for those that want a budget laptop with high performance, low power, and thin-and-light dimensions, a Celeron M is probably well worth the extra money.
To me, Intel's new model numbers make more sense. Its new Celeron D processors have lower model numbers (3xx) than its Pentium 4 processors (5xx). The Pentium 4 560 has higher performance than the Pentium 4 540. This seems more straightforward, to me, than AMD's "+" rating.
Here are some current examples:
ATI RADEON 9100 PRO IGP
SiS SiS648FX
VIA PT800
ALi M1681
I don't know why NVIDIA doesn't make nForce chipsets for the P4. Maybe NVIDIA doesn't want to compete with Intel in making chipsets
The subject said Pixel Shaders 1.1, but my comment clearly referred to Vertex Shaders. My comment is probably nonsense anyway.
Maybe John Carmack got the GF4 MX working on the NV20 path (Geforce 3) by using its limited pixel shader support. So maybe a GF4 MX is the minimum GPU that uses vertex shaders and makes DOOM 3 "look good."
I couldn't find any good information on NVIDIA's site, but here's one review that compares the GeForce4 MX with the GeForce2 Ti (including a little info on pixel shader support): MSI GF4MX420, GF4MX440 and GF4MX460 Video Cards Review
Are these machines being excluded because they are "workstations" and supposedly not desktops? Isn't the low end Precision 360n close enough to a "desktop" to qualify? It starts at $849 uses the Intel 875P chipset (Pentium 4). The only thing about this model is you're forced to choose a "workstation" graphics card (Quadro or FireGL).
Like everyone else here, I guess it's a DRM thing. That, and the fact that the PSP will probably store mp3 and AAC files on relatively small Memory Sticks. High-capacity drives probably scare Sony's Music division.
Here's how the Celeron D 335 actually performed against the XP 2400+:
Business Winstone 2004 2400+: 19.1 Celeron: 18.8 2400+ 1.6% faster Content Creation Winstone 2004 2400+: 24.8 Celeron: 24.5 2400+ 1.2% faster DivX 5.1 Encoding 2400+: 31.7 Celeron: 32.9 Celeron 3.8% faster Aquamark 3 2400+: 36.2 Celeron: 38.0 Celeron 5% faster Gunmetal Benchmark 2 2400+: 32.9 Celeron: 33.5 Celeron 1.8% faster Halo 2400+: 48.2 Celeron: 49.9 Celeron 3.5% faster Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour 2400+: 27.5 Celeron: 31.0 Celeron 1.3% faster Simcity 4 2400+: 63.5 Celeron: 63.5 even Warcraft III: Frozen Throne 2400+: 34.6 Celeron: 43.4 Celeron 2.5% faster Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby 2400+: 178.8 Celeron: 191.5 Celeron 7.1% faster Unreal Tournament 2003 Botmatch 2400+: 58.9 Celeron: 57.7 2400+ 2.1% faster Quake III Arena 2400+: 255.1 Celeron: 289.4 Celeron 13.4% faster Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory 2400+: 64.5 Celeron: 62.1 2400+ 3.9% faster 3D Studio Max Render Time 2400+: 249 Celeron: 287 2400+ 13.2% faster Quake III Compile Times 2400+: 18.9 Celeron: 22.2 2400+ 14.9% faster The Northwood-based Celeron sucked, but the new Prescott-based Celeron D is a good performer for a budget CPU. Athlon XP is a dying platform (to be replaced by Sempron). The Celeron D 335 will drop in price as faster models are released. Let's do another comparison when the Celeron D gets its first speed bumps.What I'm really waiting for is Celeron D on LGA775 and Sempron on Socket 939.
Am I the only Slashdot reader that thinks chipsets are more important than CPUs when building a computer?
PCI-X and PCI-Express
From that link:
As for DDR2, just remember that Opteron and Athlon64 have on-die memory controllers.
Sony VAIO R Series "Features" Page (including "Advanced Liquid Cooling System")
Apple Power Mac G5 "Design" Page (including "liquid cooling system")
The feature that jumped out at me was "USB On the Go to attach to digital cameras." This seems like a great digital camera accessory for portable photo storage and viewing/previewing.
I'm still not convinced that viewing battery-sucking video on a 3.5" screen will be all that great (I admit I haven't tried it yet). It might be okay for previewing video, but for actually watching video I find more value in the video-out connections for watching on an external screen.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Athlon64 platform will not allow us to install "low end" processors into motherboards made for "high end" processors. I read on Anandtech's review that AMD's value line of processors (including an upcoming 32-bit only version of Athlon64) will all be Socket 754 processors while future Athlon64's will eventually all be Socket 939.
What I'm pretty sure this means is that I will not be able to install AMD's Athlon64-based value processor into a Socket 939 motherboard, then install a real Athlon64 4000+ a year or two later when prices are way lower. Even though AMD's "value" processors will be based on the same Athlon64 core, I'm pretty sure socket converters (e.g. slockets, socket370 to fc-pga converters) will not work because of the different on-chip memory controllers (single-channel vs. dual-channel).
So there goes my plan on building a Socket 939 system using AMD's "value" processor, then upgrading to Athlon64 later. Now I'm considering building an Intel Socket 775 Grantsdale-based system with DDR2, PCI-Express, BTX form factor, and a (I'm not kidding) Prescott-based Celeron 325 processor (2.53GHz, 533MHz bus, 256KB L2 cache). By the time I need more processing power, a 4GHz+ Pentium4 (1066MHz bus, x86-64) will be reasonably priced.
Note that the Shuttle XPC requires a proprietary heat-pipe cooling system and a special small, quiet power supply to keep the system cool and quiet. On the other hand, improved cooling and noise reduction are built into the BTX spec. Theoretically, any computer maker will be able to easily build a tiny, cool, and quiet SFF picoBTX machine based on Intel's 6.9-liter reference system.
This listening test gives very useful information for those that rip and encode their own compressed music files, but it might not give an accurate representation of the quality of online music store files.
- Non-white players were not allowed in the league until Jackie Robinson in 1947. It took several more years for all teams to consider/accept non-white players.
- International talent was hardly utilized before 1960.
- MLB did not reach the West Coast until the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved west in 1958. Scouting Western US talent by train was not an easy task.
So not only is the supposed "thinning out" of hitting talent (due to more teams) canceled out by the increase in population -- the available population is much more fully utilized. Cy Young's feats seem a little less impressive when you consider that he did not have to face the best Negro League hitters, foreign hitters, or even all of the talented West Coast hitters.It seems like they could "disable" one of the cores and call it a Celeron. However, I don't know if consumers will accept processors with "half" the performance of their mainstream counterparts. On the other hand, a single-core Pentium-M (an impressive, but expensive, performer today) would seem like a good deal for a "budget" processor one or two years from now.
I don't think Intel will just "disable" half the cache like they've been doing since the Celeron 300A (and keep both cores). I think this is unlikely because a dual-core Pentium-M with 1MB of L2 cache (remember, Dothan will have 2MB L2 cache) would be too darn good for a "budget" processor and would cannibalize sales of their mainstream and high-end processors.
However Intel decides to make the new Celerons, it looks like we will have much better low-cost options from Intel than the pathetic Pentium-4 based Celerons with 128MB L2 cache and 400MHz front side bus.
From Microsoft's Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Support Extended Announcement web page:
So I think (98+) is more accurate.