Core Stepping?

[name9902]

How do these Core Stepping letters and numbers relate to the names given to cores like Williamette, Prescott, etc

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: name9902
How do these Core Stepping letters and numbers relate to the names given to cores like Williamette, Prescott, etc

In the case of those cores, nothing, they are on differant manufacturing proccess. Williamette was 180nm, Northwood 130nm, and Prescott 90nm. There were different steppings of each, that were just new revisions. The northwood C's for example were the 800mhz FSB versions with hyperthreading.

 

[name9902]

Well, i'm talking about under an Intel description, it'll say like Stepping: N0

what exactly does that mean?

 

[stevty2889]

They tweak the proccess and make minor improvements to the CPU's as they are being made, that help improve clock speed, or add new features and what not. Thats what the differant steppings mean. A0 is like the very first revision, B0 would be the second revision. I believe a change in letter is a bigger change than a change in number. B1 would be a slightly tweaked B0, but C0 a bigger change over B0. Usualy there will be several revisions before it is ready for release, so the first CPU's out on the market could be a B0 or B1 revision, etc..