Intel CPU Roadmap Update
Anandtech has the latest with Intel's twisty processor roadmap.
Source: AnandtechThe biggest news is of course the announcement of the x20, x30 and x40 dual-core processors. At present, it is not clear if these are the final names for these parts or simply placeholders. The "x" may be replaced by whatever number eventually gets assigned to the dual-core parts. That's one interpretation of it, anyway, as Intel's roadmap refers to "6xx series" and "xxx" series parts - note the use of the lowercase "x" here. With the addition of the 600 series in the last roadmap, it stands to reason that the dual-core NetBurst chips will eventually be given a numerical designation. "X" is already one of the most overused letters in the alphabet as far as marketing goes, so we can hope that Intel will refrain from adding another component to the already crowded "Generation X" hardware genre. The Pentium 4 eXtreme Edition (TM) has already paved the way, however, so don't get your hopes up. There is no HyperThreading support scheduled for the dual core Processors. Besides the introduction of the dual core parts, most of the roadmap remains unchanged. A few parts have been pushed back one quarter on their launch date, and in the case of the 4.0 GHz 580J, it has been cancelled. Some will point to the product cancellations - there are a couple more elsewhere in this roadmap - as a sign of Intel's pending doom. We prefer a slightly less alarmist view and believe that Intel is simply being cautious. Overclocking headroom on Intel parts has always been pretty good relative to their competitors, and rather than pushing parts through validation at close to their maximum speed, it is probable that Intel is making sure the parts run reliably. Other than the ill-fated Pentium III 1.13 GHz Coppermine, Intel CPUs have usually been binned at least two levels below their maximum clock rate. Many enthusiasts are already overclocking Prescott cores to 4.0 GHz using only air-cooled HSFs, so such clock speeds are certainly attainable. With more recent steppings of the Prescott core (akin to minor software revisions), we would expect slightly more headroom that 4.0 GHz. Time will tell us whether Intel is really having problems or is simply being conservative - they could have always gone with a water cooled CPU setup like the Apple G5 systems if they felt the increased speed was truly worthwhile.
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