When Intel released the Pentium 4 on its .13 micron process back in January of 2002 the processor quickly picked up a reputation for excellent scalability, hitting the 2.8 GHz mark in late August of last year.  That’s a 40% frequency jump in eight months?an unprecedented achievement for a desktop processor. 

Since then things have been relatively quiet on the P4 front as far as operating frequency is concerned.  Intel debuted the 3.06 Ghz CPU in November (giving the P4 a total frequency boost of 53% in 2002) but the CPU has remained at this speed for the past seven months in marked contrast to its prodigious increases in the prior year.  Rather than focusing on continuing to raise the P4’s clock, Intel has spent the last seven months improving CPU efficiency and moving its entire P4 lineup to both an 800 MHz FSB and a series of dual DDR chipsets, as well as introducing new features like SoundMax, Communication Streaming Architecture (CSA) and Performance Acceleration Technology (PAT).

Compared to the all of the above, the introduction of the 3.2 GHz P4 is a bit blasé, especially considering that it’s only a 6% jump in percentage terms over the previous 3 GHz model and doesn’t include any new enhancements or modifications to the Northwood core.  The core will give Northwood a small speed boost, however, and may be enough to push the chip past the AthlonXP 3200+ and give the performance crown back to Intel. 

The question of whether or not the performance crown has ever left Intel is, in fact, open to interpretation; how you answer it will depend on which platforms and benchmarks you choose to emphasize.  Unlike an AthlonXP system, which will invariably use either a VIA KT400 or (increasingly) an NVIDIA nForce2 platform, Intel’s P4 has a wide range of platforms available to it, several of which have a substantial presence in the market.  Although this strategy has allowed Intel to offer the P4 at a variety of price points, it has also given AMD a certain degree of wiggle room when comparing AthlonXP and P4 performance.  One of the things this review will allow for is a head-to-head comparison of just how accurate AMD’s current 3200+ rating really is when compared to the P4 across a variety of platforms.

P4 Scaling:  The Road Beyond 3.2 GHz

Given the P4’s impressive track record of rapid frequency increases it?s a bit surprising that Intel’s only chosen to bump the clock up 6% (200 MHz) for its next-generation processor.  The small bump makes more sense, however, once Intel’s longer-range plans for the chip and the current state of the market are both factored in.

The speed at which a processor tops out on a given process is very much dependent on how advanced the manufacturer’s technology is and how experienced their production teams are at working with a given set of equipment.  Statistically, however, the P4 would likely begin to top out at the 3.4 ? 3.6 GHz range on a .13 micron process.  We’ve seen some P4’s running faster than this, but such systems have always been mounted with ultra-high-end cooling rigs that provide a level of cooling an air-powered solution can’t hope to compete with.  It’s reasonable to assume that Intel could’ve rolled its next-generation P4 out at a higher speed, but Santa Clara has little reason to at this point.  Not only is demand for high-end processors still low compared to two years ago, but the vast majority of software today isn’t particularly taxing on the hardware it’s running on.     

In addition, Intel has no competitive reason to release a higher-speed processor as the P4 isn’t being markedly surpassed in any categories the company feels are important enough to warrant releasing a higher grade of CPU.  Its always better to have some reserve capacity left in a CPU design in case you unexpectedly need it than it is to be caught napping and have no reserve performance to draw on (as Intel found out in 1999). 

One more factor of note.  At this point it’s likely (though not certain) that this will be the fastest CPU Intel releases for Socket 478.  Prescott and Socket T are both expected to debut this fall with an initial speed of 3.4 GHz.  Intel could conceivably offer .09 micron Prescott processors on the Socket 478 Northwood platform, but we’ve not heard that Santa Clara has any plans to do so.  Companies like Power Leap will undoubtedly be looking into providing their usual array of adapters and converters to offer those with older systems a chance to upgrade without purchasing an entirely new system.

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