Intel's 1066MHz Front Side Bus; See you in the Fall

Intel's new roadmaps have been the talk of the town for the last few days due to the negative press swirling around cancelation of Tejas and Jayhawk (Pentium 4 successors). Fortunately, with the Intel Channel Conferences occurring right now, we were able to sneak a peak at some additional technology Intel has planned, as well as update our roadmaps for the new processors.

Intel's largest addition on the horizon? As the topic suggests, 1066FSB has been added to the Q3 roadmap, but for only two processors; the 3.46GHz P4EE and the 3.73GHz Prescott Pentium 4. The expected update on FSB has been long overdue; many 865PE and 875P solutions already claim support for 1GHz+ front side bus. Overclockers should be fairly familiar with this.

However, despite the suggestion that new 1066FSB processors are on the way from Intel, the next generation chipsets do not immediately support the new bus speed. ATI's roadmap for Intel already hints at 1GHz FSB, but SiS and others have been fairly quiet. Since it will be at least Q2'05 before the next Intel chipset debuts (Lakeport), Intel has added another chipset to its 2004 desktop lineup. This new chipset, dubbed 925XE, is exactly the same as the 925X chipset with the addition of 1066FSB support. It may be quite probable that 925X and 915P are overclockable to 1066FSB speeds, but as of today the 925XE is the only officially announced core logic.

Not only does the Prescott receive an extra boost in FSB, but Intel has slated a new increase in cache size for the Pentium 4 (not P4EE) family. The first new processor (Intel 720) will carry a 2MB L2 cache! Recall that Dothan (Pentium M) also incorporate 2MB L2 cache. With the longer pipelines on the Prescott and Dothan processors, the additional L2 cache has proven invaluable to keeping the processors competitve. The P4EE with 1066FSB will only have 2MB L3 cache, but the L2 cache has not been disclosed. Whether or not the newest P4EE is Prescott or Northwood based remains a mystery, but since most P4EEs have been based off the Gallitin (Xeon) cores in the past, it is probable that the processor is again Gallitin or Nocona based.

The only real addition to the mirange desktop roadmap is the P4EE.

Notice there have been some significant naming changes since the last roadmap we published. It seems the Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) and Low Voltage (LV) naming convensions have flip flopped. The LV processors are now regarded as the "higher" numbered chips. Even though the product name is not supposed to denote performance, it seems the move to rate the LV processors higher than the ULV processors (a reversal on the original naming) seems to suggest otherwise.

You may notice the Intel 720 is listed in the 7xx family of processors and that these processors all share something in common; Banias or Dothan core.

Below are you can see our updated Celeron roadmap as well. Celeron D technically launches in June, but we have already seen multiple samples from retail merchants.