Intel Updates Plans Again: Adds Pentium 4 EE at 3.40GHz and Pentium 4 at 3.40GHz
 

Looks like Intel may get another last gasp from their 130nm Northwood.
Is Intel having problems rolling out Prescott?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...110093222.html

Intel Updates Plans Again: Adds Pentium 4 Extreme Edition at 3.40GHz
and Pentium 4 at 3.40GHz into the Roadmap
Prescott and Nortwood to be Priced Equally in Q1 2004
by Anton Shilov
11/10/2003 | 09:35 AM
Intel Corporation has reportedly reformed its CPU roadmap once again,
adding some more powerful 0.13 micron processors, but staying rather
tight-lipped concerning the higher-end 90nm CPUs ramp up in early
2004.
Sources close to Intel are reporting about two new microprocessors for
Socket 478 infrastructure to emerge in the first quarter 2004. The
first processor will be Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition at 3.40GHz
with 2MB of L3 cache, the second one will be the Intel Pentium 4
processor at 3.40GHz with 512KB of L2 cache. Both chips will be
produced using Intel's mature 0.13 micron technology and will feature
800MHz Quad Pumped Bus being compatible with existing i865 and i875P
infrastructure.
At the same time – presumably in Q1 2004 – Intel is projected to also
roll-out its Pentium 4 processor with SSE3 technology (Prescott)
processor at 2.80GHz with 1MB of L2, 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus and no HT
technology indicated. In the second quarter the company is very likely
to unveil a version of this 90nm CPU for LGA775 platform as well.
The roadmap does not reflect general changes, but also does no longer
claim about the launch of Intel Pentium 4 processors with SSE3
technology at 2.80GHz, 3.00GHz, 3.20GHz and 3.40GHz with 1MB of L2
cache and 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus before the 15th of February directly,
but still has some indirect confirmations about this.

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 13:42:48 -0600, lyon_wonder
wrote:

Intel Updates Plans Again: Adds Pentium 4 Extreme Edition at 3.40GHz
and Pentium 4 at 3.40GHz into the Roadmap
Prescott and Nortwood to be Priced Equally in Q1 2004

(snip)

At the same time – presumably in Q1 2004 – Intel is projected to also
roll-out its Pentium 4 processor with SSE3 technology (Prescott)
processor at 2.80GHz with 1MB of L2, 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus and no HT
technology indicated.

Weird. So they're having problems making Prescott run with "800 MHz"
FSB? That's the rumor, anyways. That would explain the "equal
pricing" rumor, as the slower "533 MHz" FSB would hamper performance
compared to Northwood...

Prescott stepping back to "533 MHz" FSB would be quite lame. I'd take
the Northwood if they cost the same and perform about the same - the
faster FSB should give more consistent performance.

Anyway, won't matter to me, as I took advantage of the recent Intel
price drop and built me a 3.0 GHz monster. Cool!

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 13:42:48 -0600, lyon_wonder
wrote:
Looks like Intel may get another last gasp from their 130nm Northwood.
Is Intel having problems rolling out Prescott?

That would be my guess. It seems that 90nm production is proving more
difficult than expected for all involved. AMD recently pushed back
their release of 90nm production to Q3 of 2004. Intel has already
pushed it back from Sept. of '03 to at least Feb. of '04, and it might
be pushed further it seems. IBM doesn't seem to be making any great
strides at releasing anything produced at a 90nm fab.

In any case, this move is not altogether surprising. AMD plans to
introduce a new Athlon64 3400+ processor as well as an AthlonFX 53
processor in the next few weeks. Since Prescott isn't ready, it makes
sense for them to try to release something that they've got, and the
Northwood P4's look like they have enough umph left in them for one
more speed grade.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca