Price Cuts on the 23rd?

sykopath79

Senior member
Nov 2, 2000
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Originally posted by: sao123
accordin to sources at www.xbitlabs.com www.theenquirer.net www.anandtech.com Intels next price cut is Oct 26, just before the release of the new prescott 478pin pentium 4.

I wouldn't count on Prescott before 2004... I smell a fish with the announcement of the P4 Extreme. I don't think they'd bother coming up with a 2MB cache Northwood unless they're having delays with Prescott. Wouldn't make much sense.
 

bozo1

Diamond Member
May 21, 2001
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10-26 for Intel processors 2.5GHz and up. No price moves on processors 2.4 and slower. The percentage reduction hasn't been announced yet.
 

sao123

Lifer
May 27, 2002
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I wouldn't count on Prescott before 2004... I smell a fish with the announcement of the P4 Extreme. I don't think they'd bother coming up with a 2MB cache Northwood unless they're having delays with Prescott. Wouldn't make much sense.

Here are my thoughts about this matter:


think the real reason intel release this interim processor is based on this article here...
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20030815035254.htm
Some changes must be made to current motherboards in order for true prescott support.
therefore a lot of recent motherboard purchasers of the just released 865/875 chipsets may be screwed that their motherboard may not support prescott afterall... even though they were advertised as such. see articles here...
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20030722041339.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20030717083145.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20030716172709.html

In order not to make the (also just released) 3.2C the end of the line for the just released motherboards....This CPU is to fill that gap.
taken from http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/editorial/display/idf-fall2003-2_3.html


Intel cannot increase the core frequency of the Northwood based processors anymore. The production technology used here has been almost completely exhausted. However, luckily Intel still has a back up solution. This solution is the Xeon and Xeon MP architecture with L3 cache, no matter how strange it seems to you. This where Intel started looking for the possibility to speed up its processors in the nearest future.

Also Louis Burns said that they have worked very closely with gaming community for a while. They have studied the needs and desires of this specific user group and are planning to introduce a brand new Intel processor for gaming community and PC enthusiasts: Pentium 4 with Hyper-Threading and additional 2MB cache. The CPU will work at 3.2GHz and will be called Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. It should be available in 30-60 days from the OEMs.


This way, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition will be none other but a certain analogue to Xeon MP for Socket478. In other words, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition will be just a regular Pentium 4 3.2GHz on Northwood core with Hyper-Threading and 800MHz bus, but featuring a 2MB L3 cache. Probably Intel hopes that adding L3 cache to this processor will allow boosting its performance a lot.

Here I would like to say that adding the 2MB L3 cache will make the total data volume, which can be stored in the caches of Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, equal to only 2MB. The thing is that Pentium 4 caches are based on inclusive architecture (unlike the caches of AMD Athlon CPUs), that is why the data from the L2 cache of the Pentium 4 processor will be duplicated in the L3 cache.

Another interesting issue worth mentioning is the price of the ?new? Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. For example, today Xeon MP 2.8GHz with 2MB cache costs $3692. I don?t think that this is an acceptable price for gamers and hardware enthusiasts, for whom this product is actually targeted. Xeon DP 3.2GHz with a 1MB cache, which is due on October 5, 2003, will cost $851. This is also quite a big sum of money, although this is much better already. In general, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition should be priced like Athlon 64 FX-51, that is why it will probably cost around $700.


I have seen other quotes in price also...but lets agree the range is 700-800 dollars per chip, also noteworthy...
taken from here.... http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1870

You can expect systems based on the Extreme Edition processor to be due out in November, but Intel won't be following up with boxed CPUs until the beginning of next year. You will probably see some OEM CPUs for sale in the next 30 days or so.

Also...Prescott pricing and availability...can be found here...
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11352.
I'm not expecting any delays for prescott unless it is revealed during today the last day of developer forum.


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I am interested to see which of the new P4's will outperform each other.

I dont know everything about cache but here goes.
Compare: Assume same clock speed of 3.2 or 3.4 Ghz 800FSB.
P4 Extreme - 478 Pin P4 based on Xeon Core (130nm northwood) with hyperthreading Rev 1.0 and 2.0MB L3 cache, 512K L2 Cache, 8K L1 Cache.
see article here... http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/editorial/display/idf-fall2003-2_3.html

or
P4psc - 478 Pin P4 (90nm prescott) with hyperthreading Rev 1.1 and 1MB L2 Cache + 16K L1Cache, 13 new instructions.
see articles here...
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1869&p=2
and here... http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1790

BTW I dont think it will be called the P5, until at least next year in Q2 or when they go to the socket t, 775 pin grid.
see article here... http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8011
 

sao123

Lifer
May 27, 2002
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Just a little update from Xbitlabs.com ...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/editorial/display/idf-fall2003-3_7.html


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.