Chip giant Intel unveiled five new notebook processors, including two low-power chips designed to compete against Transmeta's Crusoe.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company released a 750-MHz Pentium III and two Celerons running at 650 MHz and 600 MHz for the mainstream notebook market. In addition, the company released two low voltage processors for the ultraportable market: a 600-MHz Pentium III that consumes an average of less than a watt of power, as well as a 500- MHz Celeron that consumes less than 2 watts. Some of these ultraportable systems, which generally contain smaller screens than other notebooks but weigh three pounds or less, will be able to run for 5.5 hours on batteries, indicated Frank Spindler, vice president and general manager of Intel's notebook processor division. Notebooks are an increasingly important focus for Intel. Not only are more companies shifting from buying desktops to portables for their employees, notebook performance is improving rapidly because of advances in computer design, changes inside software applications, and more energy-efficient processors. New ultraportables with the 600-MHz Pentium III, for instance, "have more processing power than the fastest desktop a year ago," said Spindler. Intel also unveiled its 815 chipset for desktops, which will allow PC makers to marry the latest Pentium III technology without adopting expensive Rambus memory.