When Intel released the P4 they went all out for new technology, a new socket a new chip and a new standard. Certainly a new high price as well, but that was to be expected I suppose. So in return for this price what does Intel offer us. 

First off is the raw power, well over the 1.5Ghz mark now. However when does this power become useless. It has to be soon. But to keep up with AMD Intel had to released a faster clocked chip. The features of the P4 seem pretty impressive especially the 400Mhz system bus. the input and output bandwidth to the processor is a massive 3.2Gb using the new technology. Intel use quad pumping and there own buffering technology to achieve this sustain speed over the standard 100Mhz clocked system. This compares with the PIII which has a bandwidth of 1.06Gb even over a system clocked at 133Mhz.

The P4 is designed to fit into the socket 423, a new socked produced by Intel that currently only support the P4. Intel's chipset for the P4 is the Intel 850.

Intel's aim was definitely to go for a feature packed power house with the P4 and the internet streaming SSE 2 and their enhanced floating point and multimedia unit.

Description from Intel

The Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, Intel's most advanced, most powerful processor, is based on the new Intel® NetBurst™ micro-architecture. The Pentium 4 processor is designed to deliver performance across applications and usages where end users can truly appreciate and experience the performance. These applications include Internet audio and streaming video, image processing, video content creation, speech, 3D, CAD, games, multi-media, and multi-tasking user environments. The Intel Pentium 4 processor delivers this world-class performance for consumer enthusiast and business professional desktop users as well as for entry-level workstation users.

• The Pentium® 4 processor is available at speeds ranging from 1.30 to 2GHz+.

• Featuring the new Intel NetBurst micro-architecture.

• Supported by the Intel® 850 chipset.

• Fully compatible with existing Intel Architecture-based software.

• Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions.

• 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.

• Based upon Intel's 0.18 micron manufacturing process.

www.Intel.com

Socket 478

Intel have now released the new socket 478 version of the Pentium 4. This version as you may of guessed has more pins than its predecessor. The reason given for this is that for speeds above 2Ghz more power and ground pins are required. Unfortunately they wont now fit into existing Pentium 4 motherboards. The new platform of the Socket 478 is born and future P4 CPU's will be made to this specification.

The P4 will be a faster processor once the support for its features is out. Current benchmarks show that the Athlon clocked at 1.33Ghz can still beat the P4 at 1.5Ghz. As I say once optimization comes out for the P4 this chip will be a competitor. I still wouldn't pay the price of one though considering the price of the Athlon's at the moment. Until Intel re-thinks about its pricing structure I cant give it my support over AMD.

The Pentium 4 is actually 20% slower per MHz at executing instructions that that of the PIII because of its 20 stage pipeline compared with a 10 stage pipeline of the PIII. From Intel's point of view this was done because the larger pipeline allows the raw megahertz to be pumped much higher than that of the PIII and the Athlon. Intel expects this chip to go beyond the 2Ghz mark. 

We will have to wait and see exactly what is to come from this chip as it is the first new core from Intel since1995. The P6, Pentium Pro, PII, PIII, Celeron and the Xeon were all essentially the same core. With Intel Being Intel I am sure than programs and games etc will be fully optimized for the P4 soon in the future.  

Useful Links

What do the P4's Specs look like against the other CPU's Find out with the CPU Comparison Guide 

The Athlon has now been surpassed by the release of the Athlon Thunderbird. The Thunderbird takes the reigns as the fastest processor on the market with the exception of the P4 and still cheaper than the PIII. However the motherboards and cases required have not followed suite and cost a lot more still. Good option for anyone wanting power. Read More