Intel's 90nm 'Prescott' Pentium 4 processor will launch on Monday, 2 February, according to Xbit Labs which cites sources said to be close to the company.

On the big day, the chip giant will roll out the anticipated 3.4GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition - for a whopping $999, apparently - along with a vanilla 130nm P4 clocked to the same frequency.

Prescott will also be launched at 3.4GHz, and at 3.2, 3.0, 2.8GHz. A fifth Prescott will also run at 2.8GHz but only support a 533MHz effective bit rate frontside bus, rather than the regular 800MHz version.

Prices for the various Prescotts will be $417, $278, $218, $178 and $163, respectively.

All this talk of 2 February had us puzzled: Intel usually unveils chips and changes prices on Sundays, and we'd been looking to a Prescott introduction on 15 February. But the mystery is solved: that day will see, as expected, a revision of current P4 pricing. ®