Prescott Arrives : ( New Intel Pentium finally ...)

HardOCP ^ | Sunday, February 1, 2004 | Kyle Bennett

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Prescott Arrives : Intel debuts their new Prescott core today by launching 4 new CPUs while also scaling legacy architectures. We benchmark them all.

Introduction

Intel has been promising their new core for a while now and on this Super Bowl Sunday they finally deliver. Intel teases us with four new Prescott cores, a newly clocked Gallatin core, and the final chapter of the Northwood core. We put the 3.2GHz CPUs head to head to head and of course throw in Athlon64s and an AthlonFX-51 in order to find out who is king of the silicon.

Officially, Prescotts in 2.8GHz, 3.0GHz, 3.2GHz, and 3.4GHz clock speeds are being kicked off today.


Intel is also introducing a 3.4GHz Northwood as well as a 3.4GHz Extreme Edition CPU. You will see Prescott core CPUs noted with an "E" in their part number, such as "3.2E" and "3.4E." While we are going to see a socket change in the near future, all of Intel's current CPUs still take advantage of the mPGA-478 package, utilizing the well-known Socket-478. All of our new parts are still using the 800MHz bus and are supported by i865 and i875 chipsets.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This includes graphics and benchmark results.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Increased cache and pipelines:

Pentium III = 10 Stages

Pentium 4 Northwood = 20 Stages

Pentium 4 Prescott = 31 Stages

[RLK]

Requires new plug-in program for viewing. They can go to gell. I'm not in the mood for such nonsense.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

AMD64 3000+ is better bang for the buck in my opinion.

The Prescott runs hot also.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I can't tell, is it Flash?

[endthematrix]

I'm not this tech knowledgeable. However, I learn something new each hour at FR! Thanks for the read.

[RLK]

I don't know. Ever once in a while I hit sites that want to show how advanced and clever they are. I don't want to get involved with it.

One thing 8s apparent. The 64 bit machines are coming. We have more power on a desktop now than we did in a Cray a few years back.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I got involved with computers in the early 60's!

I now have a 64 bit machine - AMD64 3000+ with almost half a terabyte of rotating storage. And it seems fast. Doubt it can move the amount of data as the last mainframes I worked on though, but I am very happy with it, am planning some more upgrades to it! Runs cooler than my Athlon XP boxes did also.

[RLK]

When I was in school 30+ years ago the top mainframes used emitter coupled logic with a clock speed of ~325 megacycles. It remained so for many years. With the new desktops running at gigs and tons of core memory, I can run a ten year old mainframe into the ground.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Actually the 3200 XP Barton (around the same price as the 3000 64) is better bang if you don't have the money to up-grade the motherboard and RAM also.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Right now the 3200 XP is $215.00 in price and falling.

[Lancey Howard]

I started with a Hewlitt-Packard PDP-8, late '60s.

We had to "toggle in" the programs we wrote.

And I remember in the late '70s thinking how far we've come with these handy and convenient punch cards, as long as you don't spill them on the floor. Now I just wonder what is in store 10 years from now. Makes my brain throb.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Actually the next big leap in technology is to use circuitiry that uses light to send information back and forth. With mass-produced flawless diamonds being the CPUs and silcon (not carbon) nano-tubes carrying the light waves. The work being done in these fields has been very positive from a technological stand point.

Until then carbon-nanotube will yield our first mass-produce foray into circuitiry and building materials that are built from the molecular 'ground' level and up to mile-high towers.

[Drammach]

Agreed, The AMD Athlons seem to be just as good, for a lot less money..
The only advantage I could see was the "hyper-threading" architecture, which I understood to be a sort of multi-tasking I/O, or R/W for DVD..
I can probably do without that for now, I'm still learning how to write to CD's... LOL!!

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

The first hard drive I was involved was a drum
memory.
It held 3.8 megabytes of data and spun at 3600
RPM.
It filled up a half height 19 inch rack.

[Erasmus]

I started with a Hewlitt-Packard PDP-8, late '60s.

Er.... make that Digital Equipment Corp.

[Lael]

The first hard drive I was involved was a drum memory.

Talk about a baby still Breast Feeding!!!

Serial interfaces to Storage that consisted in Acoustic Mercury [Hg metal liquid] Delay lines!!!

And, it was STILL I/O bound!!

Try Hedonic adjustments in THAT environment!!!

[RLK]

I started with a Hewlitt-Packard PDP-8, late '60s. We had to "toggle in" the programs we wrote.p -----------------------

I started with the IBM 101. It had to be hard wired from the back on circuit cards to program.

[Yeti]

Er.... make that Digital Equipment Corp.

Yeah, I was gonna say... the PDP 11/45 that was my early experience in computing was a DEC. And yes, it took up most of a small, cold room.

[dennisw]

This article concludes with saying Athlon64 is better and cheaper----->

On the gaming side of things, if you go back and look at where our Athlon64 3000+ landed in the benchmarks, it is hard to argue against this $200 CPU. In fact repeatedly, the A64 3000+ simply makes the Prescott and the rest of the Pentium 4 bunch look bad, even the Extreme Editions. If you are looking at building a gaming system today, the Athlon64 is very attractive.

As we know prices are going to be moving and this is what the $/1K pricing is shaping up to be.




(Pricing was corrected. We had previously noted the 3.4 Northwood as an "EE". Your graphic may not have updated yet.)

While this shows some prices coming way down, we can still round up a really nice new Athlon64 motherboard and 3000+ for that price. While not being discussed widely, we still might see a few 2.8GHz Prescotts with a 533MHz bus and 512KB cache. They will be selling for $163/K. After seeing our first Prescott though, our hopes of stellar OCs are not very high.

Will this be a paper launch for Intel? We have yet to see any Prescotts showing up widely on store shelves although there have been some sightings. From the rumblings we are hearing in the channel it seems that 3.4GHz Northwoods are going to be very plentiful. Store shelves this week should of course tell more of a tale. I don't expect a lot of retail shopping cart updates on Super Bowl Sunday afternoon.


Bottom Line

Intel seems to have done a good job with their transition to the new Prescott core architecture and dodged any major pitfalls along the way. I am sure we will see some hiccups here and there, but nothing major hopefully. And from the looks of things, Intel had best be ready to scale their new core should AMD figure out how to do the same when they reach 90nm. Should you want to know what motherboards you can put a Prescott CPU in, you might want to read our Prescott and Upgrading article from December. We will of course be looking into motherboard compatibility more as we are able to test more platforms.

As for our enthusiast friends out there, stick with your Northwood CPUs should you favor Intel. As for the rest of you, keep your fingers crossed that we get to see Socket 939 Athlon64s soon!