This article is more than 1 year old

Intel puts back 90nm P4EE to Q1 '05 - report

First desktop 7xx part to accompany 6xx series chips

Intel has put back the release of its first 90nm Pentium 4 Extreme Edition chip to Q1 2005, according to claims made by Taiwanese PC vendor sources.

The chip, set to debut at 3.73GHz, was until recently roadmapped for a late Q4 2004 arrival after the release of the 3.63GHz P4EE. While the slower part will see the introduction of a 1066MHz frontside bus, it's still a 130nm part, with 2MB of on-package L3 cache in addition to the 512KB of on-die L2 cache.

The 1066MHz bus, incidentally, will be supported by the anticipated i925XE chipset due to ship in the same timeframe as the 130nm 3.63GHz chip.

The 90nm part, however, drops the L3 in favour of 2MB of on-die L2. The 'Prescott'-based part will support HyperThreading and connect through a 775-pin, Socket T interface. When it ships, the part will be the first P4EE CPU with a model number, in the 7xx range.

The delay, alluded to in a DigiTimes story, will also support Intel's AMD64-like Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T), the site's sources claim.

So too will 'Smithfield', the dual-core Prescott now due in Q3 2005 rather than late Q2. Like Intel's mobile processors, Smithfield will incorporate SpeedStep not so much to improve power consumption as to limit heat dissipation, the sources claimed. Both cores will have their own 1MB of L2 cache.

Smithfield is expected to form the basis for future desktop processors - possibly without the Pentium 4 name - and for next-generation Extreme Edition parts, too.

The latest roadmaps follow Intel's public admission that it has killed off the 4GHz P4, due to have shipped in Q1 2005 as the P4 580. However, since Intel is also expected to ship the lower-clocked but higher cached (2MB) Pentium 4 6xx series during that quarter, this may not matter much. The 6xx series will clock between 3.2GHz and 3.8GHz.

Come Q2 2005, and the i925XE is scheduled to be superseded by 'Glenwood', the next-generation 'Alderwood'. It will accompany the 'Grantsdale' (i915 series) successor, 'Lakeport'.

Q1 2005 is set to see the arrival as planned of 'Sonoma', the second generation of Intel's Centrino mobile platform. ®

Related stories

Intel preps 2MB L2 Pentium 4 6xx line?
Intel readies 3.73GHz P4 Extreme Edition for Q4
Intel dual-core desktop chip 'to ship mid-2005'
Intel to maintain 775-pin P4 prices to 2005 - report
Intel readies updated 90nm Celeron cores
Intel decides speed matters less these days, kills 4GHz Pentium
Intel ships 'execute disable' Pentium 4s Intel said to have set 'Sonoma' launch at 17 Jan '05
Intel follows Centrino price cuts with 2.1GHz Pentium M
Intel slashes Centrino prices

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like