 There
are many architectural attributes of
Intel's
Pentium 4 processor, that will drive incremental performance
for CPU core, as the months and years roll on, in their
battle against their primary competitor,
Advanced Micro
Devices. Intel engineered the P4 core with a
staggeringly deep 20 stage pipeline, that allows clock
frequencies to scale with ease. There are certainly
pros and cons to having this deeply pipelined architecture.
However, in a market where MHz and GHz are king, not only
will more clock cycles drive performance, they will also do
more to catch the eye of the average consumer, than any
marketing weasel could ever dream of.
Additionally, Intel has taken
the time to leave the "hooks" in their new flagship CPU,
that will allow for compensation over the inherent latencies
associated with this deep 20 stage pipeline.
Certainly, the move to doubling the cache size of the
initial core, to 512K with
the Northwood
release, proved to be big step in the right direction.
However, as we've mentioned in previous processor showcases
here, "speeds and feeds" are also extremely important to
keep those cache tables and pipelines full of data.
Today Intel is releasing of the "B" step version of the
Pentium 4, now with a 533MHz front side bus, allowing the
CPU core to be fed with more of what typically is the
limiting factor for most processors on the market today,
bandwidth.
This move to a 533MHz bus is
another enhancement to the Pentium 4 core that rounds out
the processor's architecture to its fullest potential.
Here's a quick scan of the vital signs.
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Specifications of the Pentium 4B 2.4GHz and
2.53GHz Processors |
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Core clock speed now
fed with more bandwidth |
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- Available at 2.26GHz, 2.4GHz and 2.53 GHz
speeds
- 533MHz "Quad Pumped" Front Side Bus
- Based upon Intel?s 0.13 micron manufacturing process
- Now built on 300mm wafers for 2X die out per wafer
and lower cost
- 512K on chip, Full Speed L2 Cache
- Rapid Execution Engine - ALU clocked at 2X frequency
of core
- 128bit Floating Point/Multimedia unit
- "Hyper Pipelined" Technology for extremely high
clock speeds
- Featuring the Intel "NetBurst" micro-architecture
- Supported by the Intel® 850 and i845 chipsets, as
well as other chipsets from SiS and VIA
- Fully compatible with existing Intel
Architecture-based software
- Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
- Intel® MMX? media enhancement technology
- Memory cacheability up to 4 GB of addressable memory
space and system memory scalability up to 64 GB of
physical memory
- Support for uni-processor designs
- 1.5V operating voltage range
Looking at
things from a hardware perspective, not much has really
changed for the CPU or the i850E chipset that officially
supports its new front side bus speed of 533MHz.
Actually, the CPU core is identical to previous Northwood
CPUs, with the exception of a lower multiplier and the
characterization that Intel did to bring the core up stable
with a 533MHz front side bus.
For the longest
time, we were baffled somewhat by the fact that we weren't
getting unlocked engineering samples from Intel for the
Pentium 4 anymore, since Willamette. With the release
of this chip, light has certainly dawned on us a bit.
Architecture, Motherboards and The Setup
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