First of all, I was wondering if the announcement of the new Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor implied that the launching of the upcoming Prescott would be postponed until a later date. Especially since the conclusion about Pentium 4 Extreme Edition coming to replace the unready Prescott processor for a while seems pretty logical to me. However, Bill Siu, Intel Vice President GM Desktop Platforms Group assured me that Prescott was doing just fine and is expected to come out in the end of the year, according to the today?s schedule. Besides, Intel is very happy with the way the introduction of 90nm technology is going and doesn?t see any obstacles on the way to complete transition.
Intel positions Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor as an absolutely individual product. Its major target is the gaming market (which makes about 5% of the overall processor market today). And although Intel doesn?t exclude the possibility to use this product in workstations, for instance, its initial goal is absolutely clear: it is games. Taking into account the upcoming announcement of AMD Athlon 64 (and Athlon FX), which is also positioned as a solution with outstanding gaming performance, Intel?s move appeared pretty evident from the marketing point of view.
Quite a while ago already we paid attention to the fact that larger processor cache has a highly positive influence on the processor performance in gaming applications. That is why it would be quite logical to expect that Pentium 4 3.2GHz Extreme Edition will do really good there. For example, we heard that the performance of Pentium 4 Extreme Edition working bat 3.2GHz will be 15% (or even more) higher than that of the Northwood based Pentium 4 3.2GHz processor. But it is today that I heard the most surprising thing: Intel admits that Pentium 4 3.2GHz Extreme Edition will show even higher gaming performance than the upcoming Prescott 3.2GHz!
It is exactly the positioning for different market segments that lets me believe Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor family will not have only one model working at 3.2GHz. No doubt that Intel will later introduce faster models based on the 90nm Prescott core. In fact, if you take a really close look at the Prescott core, you will see that there is enough room on it for 256bit L3 cache bus. It is definitely not for nothing, and Prescott CPUs with L3 cache should definitely become a really in the future.
Intel representatives also cleared a few things about the origin of Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor core for me. Actually, it is not quite the same core (the same topological silicon die) as in XeonMP, as I supposed yesterday. Its has been slightly modified so that it could support 800MHz bus, consume less power, etc. Then it was packed into the standard Pentium 4 package. As a result, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor can?t work in multi-processor configurations, however, it dissipates as much heat as the today?s Pentium 4 3.2GHz (more exact TDP numbers will be announced later, now they talk only about 85-90W).
What was really nice to hear is that Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor will be compatible with all existing mainboards on Intel875/865 chipsets and will not require any socket redesign, VRM voltage regulator enhancement (with a more powerful one), additional cooling, etc.
Pentium 4 Extreme Edition will consist of more transistors: 169 million versus 55 million by Northwood and 125 million by Prescott. Of course, such an increase in cache size will also tell on the product price: Pentium 4 Extreme Edition working at 3.2GHz will sell at least $740 (in wholesale), i.e. this CPU will be even more expensive than the upcoming Prescott processors. This is exactly why this processor will never go mass. In fact, it should become a competitor to Athlon 64 FX processor from AMD. At least in terms of pricing and positioning in the high-performance desktop systems segment.
I hope that very soon we will have the opportunity to test Pentium 4 Extreme Edition and share a little bit more details about this unexpected product.