Intel Unveils Plans for Next Pentium 4

[Loki1]

This is relevant for the emulator users!

Got this story from the tech section of my local news paper (Pensacola News Journal, Florida)!

AP News wire story

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Chip-making giant Intel Corp. plans to upgrade its flagship Pentium 4 processor for desktop computers next year and make another version available for laptops in coming weeks.

The desktop Pentium 4, code-named Prescott, will incorporate a new technology called hyper threading that tricks the operating system into thinking it is running on two processors instead of one.

The performance-boosting technology, first announced last year, made its debut this week in a line of Pentium 4 processors for servers.

The company also demonstrated a 4-Gigahertz Pentium 4, which is expected to be available next year. Currently, the Pentium 4 line tops out at 2.2 GHz.

Intel also plans to release Pentium 4-based mobile processors that run at greater than 1.5 GHz. Laptops built with the Pentium 4-M chips are expected in the coming weeks.

The announcements were made Wednesday during the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

Loki

[Bobsonsirjonny]

I wonder if this chip is gonna drive two Jags, and punch people who think it's a load of rubbish ;-)

[Chathurawind]

No! Its going to trick the OS into believing that it is driving 2 jags!

Loki

[Bobsonsirjonny]

Sorry man. It was my attempt at humour. Over here in the UK we had a transport minister. He went on about public transport, yet drove 2 jags. He also punched some guy. His name is John Prescott......

[Chathurawind]

Mr Barlett, INTEL's CEO had unveiled the new CPU for servers called Prestonia that will reach 10 GHz in 2003!

Clawhammer from AMD will be released soon with speed of 3.4 GHz. The speed is 3 times AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz. I wonder what is the Amithlon performance using Prestonia and Clawhammer?

Are the above CPUs faster than G4 & G5?

[Chathurawind]

what am I supposed to do with 10 GHz? I guess there will be games that you'll wonder whether they are real or not with that speed.
I had  these computer systems during from 1994 till today : 486sx/25, AMD-K6 200, Celeron 433, Celeron 1 GHz and, imagine, suddenly 10 GHz next year! In a sense buying games for PC is much more expensive than a game console like X-BOX and Playstation 2. You pay for the upgrades more than for the games.

[Chathurawind]

All these CPU upgrades are needed for pushing around M$ "Bloatware".  But just wait . . . the 10 GHz chip will come out and then M$ will do something or add something to their OS's and software to make it run as slow as an XT.

[Chathurawind]

Humorous explanation about "Prestonia" 10 GHz:

"Prestonia is some sort of PRESSURE COOKER gizmo that shake and rattle at 10 billion cycle a second!"  

http://www.gopresto.com/cgi-bin/presto

[JetRacer]

The question is really: how are we going to benefit from the 10GHz, without a matching CPU bus? It's probably technicly possible to attach a 1GHz CPU to a 386 motherboard, but what's the use?

Don't say cache, because almost no amount of cache is enough, you'll run out at one time or another and the CPU suddenly execute instructions at bus speed. Or move data at bus speed. If they manage to create a 1GHz motherboard/chipset to go with it, then it would rock seriusly..

...and no-one would be able to afford it =)

[System]

Exactly.  This is why there's not much difference in discernable speed between a 1.7Ghz P4 and a 1.8.  They're both using the same slow bus.

I've been asking the question for years now: when is somebody in Wintel land going to wise up and redesign the PC's archetecture.  These days they might as well not give you any expansion slots, there's no available IRQ's!  Better hope your graphics card likes sharing with your sound card...