(IDG) -- It seemed a good idea back in 1990: upgradable processors that would end PC obsolescence. But ever-shorter product cycles and continuously falling processor prices overwhelmed that effort long ago. On Tuesday Intel plays the swan song for its upgradable processor program by introducing the Pentium II OverDrive for Pentium Pro processor-based systems, the last of its kind.

Owners of upgradable Pentium Pro desktop PCs, workstations, and entry-level and departmental network servers can find this OverDrive for around $600 at some PC resellers and direct marketers on Tuesday, and many more in coming weeks. The same chip will upgrade 150- and 180-MHz Pentium Pro processor-based systems to 300 MHz, and 166- and 200-MHz processor-based systems to 333 MHz.

In addition to raw clock speed, the Pentium II OverDrive brings Intel's MMX graphics rendering technology to Pentium Pro systems, coupled with a 32KB Level 1 internal cache and a 512KB Level 2 cache running at processor speeds.

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Pentium Pro Overdrives are the last in Intel's upgradable CPU line.

It all adds up to improved performance for the most rigorous, data-intensive applications such as databases, computer-aided design, desktop publishing, imaging, and multimedia content development.

In Intel tests, replacing a 200-MHz Pentium Pro with a 333-MHz Pentium II OverDrive boosted overall performance for standard business applications 47 percent under Windows 95 and 39 percent under Windows NT 4.0. In tests on media-rich MMX applications, the 333-MHz Pentium II OverDrive processor provided an overall performance increase of 80 percent. The difference is greater still when going from a 150-MHz Pentium Pro to the 300-MHz Pentium II OverDrive.

Customers also can upgrade dual-socket Pentium Pro systems by using a pair of Pentium II OverDrive processors, which combines processing bandwidth for a limited set of symmetric multiprocessing applications under Windows NT and UNIX. Intel didn't test the compatibility of this OverDrive on quad-processing systems and doesn't recommend using it for those machines.

That's it for the OverDrive processor program, which started eight years ago as a way to stretch the useful life of 486 desktops. History shows that use of OverDrives for any flavor of processor has been minimal, says Keith Diefendorff, editor in chief of Microprocesor Report.

"If you need to upgrade a machine, it is rarely only the CPU that needs upgrading," says Diefendorff. "You need more memory, more disk, everything to grow the entire system capability. Once people discover the need to upgrade, they usually need to replace the whole kit and kaboodle."