Intel Pentium 4

With IDF just wrapping up we have a lot to look forward to over the next year in Intel's lineup. That being said, since our last guide we haven't seen anything very exciting on Intel's current product line. The EM64T enabled CPUs are out in full force on the retail channel; however, jumping on the 64-bit bandwagon this early may not be such a good idea given the current driver support in Windows x64. Oh yeah, and dispite what anyone says, 64-bit doesn't make your games run faster.

The Prescott-2M chips are now a viable option relative to the 1MB parts, as their prices have dropped to parity with the lower cache models. The problem is that the 2MB cache actually runs with higher latencies, so in many instances performance is the same as the earlier parts. 6xx has always come with 64-bit support enabled, so now the choice is for less faster cache, or more slower cache. There are instances where the 5xx parts win, but for the same price most people will want the 6xx model. You can get full benchmarks in our 6xx performance review.

We're still waiting to see the Prescott-2M with virtualization start shipping by the end of the year. Hopefully when they arrive they'll drive the rest of the 6 series Pentium lineup down in price. Until then, we can't recommend these processors especially when compared to their Athlon 64 counterparts. (Remember, though, that Intel traditionally doesn't drop non-value chip prices below $175, choosing to discontinue production at that point.)

Sempron & Turion Celeron & Pentium M
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  • ElFenix - Monday, September 5, 2005 - link

    these PR numbers don't tell me anything =(
  • andrewln - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    mhz does not mean anything too
  • ElFenix - Sunday, September 11, 2005 - link

    mhz is very useful for comparing between the same families of processors.

    ideally they're be model/pr number, core mhz, bus mhz, and l2 cache size in these tables, i think.
  • joex444 - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Athlon_64..."> has a list of all the Athlon 64s, and below it has links to other types of CPUs where you can get a list like the one above from the link in See Also.

    For the "fun" of it, I decided to transform the list into a database. It's really interesting how many, for example, 3200+ CPUs there are, across sockets and cores. It's on my home PC, so I can't even find the best example for you, but I can see how you could be confused. I should do the same for Intel's, I think there's is more confusing. For example, a 520 and 518 differ in FSB speed -- the 520 has a 800MHz / 518 has 533MHz. It's a big difference but is only worth 2 points (assuming the 518 runs slower than the 520; if the 533MHz bus chip runs faster than a 520 but slower than 530 then it's a 522, if that exists, it's all theoretical since I'm not looking).
  • ceefka - Monday, September 5, 2005 - link

    Would these boards require a 939 Opteron or do they also play with Venice, Toledo or Machester (X2)?
  • ceefka - Monday, September 5, 2005 - link

    It took me a while, but I have found the answer myself.

    From what I have seen from the Tyan Tomcat K8E S2865 it will play with 939 Opterons as well as any s939 CPU, though it doesn't feature the nF4 Pro.

    Foxconn makes their NFPIK8AA-8EKRS for s940 CPUs NVIDIA nForce Pro 2200 + nForce Pro 2050 and nicy nice TI firewire controllers a+b. If they can swap the 2050 for a couple of PCI slots on a s939 version, that would be a nice board.
  • Tides - Sunday, September 4, 2005 - link

    Is there really any gain from single cores atm? When will we see apps/games/programs take advantage of this.
  • yacoub - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    What you do is buy a socket-939 system now and a single core chip since they're pretty cheap these days. Then in maybe 6-12 months, pick up a dual-core chip when those prices have fallen a bunch so you're set for games that might finally arrivee that take advantage of the second core somehow.
  • highlandsun - Sunday, September 4, 2005 - link

    I just replaced the Winchester 3000+ in my system with an X2 3800+. My compile times have sped up drastically. On the 3000+ compiling my source tree took about 4 minutes. With the 3800+ and serial make, it's 3:22 and the system shows 50% idle time. With parallel make -j2 it takes 1:50 and the system shows about 15% idle time. With -j3 it takes 1:45 and about 1% idle time. I'm pleased.
  • xsilver - Monday, September 5, 2005 - link

    man those compile times are great but for noobs that are new to computers and only use it for surfing and games --- I think its still not really recommended that they get dual core

    a good analogy i can think of is turbocharging in cars -- too often i see people with twin turbocharger cars that dont even rev their engines beyond the 3000rpm limit for the turbo's to kick in. What a waste!!! and how stupid (eg. always driving around with turbo lag)

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