Friday, October 05, 2001

Introduction

While initially put to market with the Socket 423 interface, Pentium 4 processors developed using Intel's 0.18 micron process are now available in a Socket 478 format. Thus, we're now faced with two effective versions of the P4. And, just to make things a little more interesting, the next rendition of the Pentium 4 - dubbed "Northwood" - will soon be come to market, but only in a Socket 478 format. As a result, it's becoming a better & better idea to invest in a Socket 478 motherboard in order to maintain compatibility with future, 0.13 micron P4s - such as "Northwood".

The Intel Pentium 4. A number of characteristics distinguish the Pentium 4 from the Pentium III,many of which we've covered in our original Pentium 4 article (click on the link for more). A number of recent tests have also noted a certain lack of raw horsepower on the P4's part. That said, its also important to note that very few companies have actually come out with games or applications that are capable of exploiting the P4's SSE2 instructions, which leaves much of the chip's true potential still just beyond the horizon...
Below is a list of the 2Ghz Pentium 4 principal characteristics: Cache L1 = 8K Cache L2 = 256K FSB = 100MHz quad pumped Process = 0.18 micron Support for SSE2 4Ghz Arithmetic Logic Unit Voltage = 1.75 volts Current = 57.4 amperes Power dissipation = 75.3 watts

So, with all that out of the way and without further ado, let's head on into the tests!

Next: The test setup.