LinuxHardware.org: Intel’s Prescott, Intel’s Extreme Edition, and AMD’s Athlon 64 3400+

[ Thanks to Augustus for this link.
]

“Today Intel unveiled the next great chip in their line of
Pentium 4 processors. This chip codenamed ‘Prescott’ has been
talked about for quite some time and we hope the chip lives up to
the hype. With new features like an increased L2 cache and new
instructions, the Prescott has the goods on paper. Along with this
new processor, Intel also released a speed bump to their ‘Extreme
Edition’ line which brings the chip up to 3.4GHz. The Extreme
Edition chips encompass the same features of their normal
‘Northwood’ Pentium 4 cousins but also add an additional 2MB of L3
cache to the existing 512KB of L2. In this review we will introduce
you to these new Intel processors and also bring in the Athlon 64
desktop processors now available at 3400+ model numbers. If your
ready for a look into what AMD and Intel have in store for you
today, read on.

“First, we’ll talk about Intel’s Extreme Edition part. The Intel
Pentium 4 Extreme Edition offers nothing fancy like new
instructions or a new manufacturing process. Instead, Intel took
the brute force approach on this CPU and simply added an additional
2MB of L3 cache. This wasn’t even a processor redesign for Intel,
they simply took their Xeon MP processor and repackaged it in a
Socket 478 socket, compatible with today’s 865/875 series
motherboards. Many have said that this processor wasn’t even
planned but that Intel decided they needed an answer to AMD’s
Athlon 64 FX line. This wouldn’t be confirmed by Intel, of course,
but it’s not like any processor company to spring random new
products on the industry without a fair amount of hype…”

Complete Story