(IDG) -- CPU-upgrade giants Evergreen Technologies and Kingston Technology on Monday announced powerful upgrades designed to bring older PCs closer to current speed standards.

Evergreen's EclipsePCI carries the upgrade processor, an Intel BX chipset, high-speed memory, and a 100-MHz bus on a plug-and-play PCI card. Evergreen plans to ship two versions of the card, one with the Intel Celeron and the other with the AMD K6-2 processor, with initial speeds ranging from 233 to 333 MHz.

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The EclipsePCI will be available in the first quarter of 1999. Although final pricing isn't available, the company estimates that an EclipsePCI with a 333-MHz Celeron chip and 64MB of memory will cost about $400.

CPU upgrades on add-in cards have been available in the past but have delivered mixed results. An Evergreen spokesperson says that Intel's recent PCI specification makes a workable PCI processor upgrade possible. The PCI bus doesn't have all the signals required for a processor, and Evergreen has worked around that with some inventive technology that keeps the original processor communicating with the EclipsePCI card without slowing the processor down, according to the company.

Evergreen claims that the product will upgrade virtually any system, including 486-based systems with PCI slots, to the full speed of the new processor. Future versions will also include an AGP connector for powerful graphics cards.

Turbo-powered TurboChips

Kingston Technology's TurboChip upgrade, previously available in 200- and 233-MHz versions, makes a jump in speed: The new upgrade is based on the 333-MHz version of the AMD K6-2.

Expected to ship at the end of November, the $349 TurboChip 333 includes a built-in fan and--according to the company--will work with any 166-MHz or faster Pentium-based system that uses a Socket 5 or 7 on its motherboard. The Kingston Web site includes a list of systems that the TurboChip 333 has been tested with.

The TurboChip 333 includes voltage-regulation and automatic clock-multiplier circuitry that should allow drop-in installation in most systems, without the need to deal with motherboard jumper settings.

Martin Reynolds, vice president of technology assessment for research firm Dataquest, commented that Evergreen's EclipsePCI technology is "clever" and that both upgrades "solve problems for some users." He added, though, that they won't appeal to most home users, especially with comparable new systems costing $600 to $800.

But with some 18 million older PCs on desks in corporate America, Reynolds said there's plenty of room for upgrades in the business market.