Prescott adds punch to P4

Intel will today introduce its Prescott processor, a new version of its Pentium 4 desktop chip. Prescott offers 13 new instructions, enhancements to Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, and a doubled L2 cache to speed memory access.

The new chip will be more efficient at running office productivity tasks, as it has better support for background tasks such as virus scanning and encryption, said Intel.

The Prescott processor, available now, is the first chip built with Intel's 90nm process. It will be branded as the Intel Pentium 4 with Hyper-Threading technology, the same as Intel's previous Pentium 4 chips that are built with the older 130nm process.

"It's more than just a straight die shrink, but not a big enough deal to justify a change in the branding," said Intel UK spokesman Nick Knupffer.

The first of the Prescott models will be branded 3.40E GHz, 3.20E GHz, 3E GHz, and 2.80E GHz, with the "E" differentiating them from existing versions of the Pentium 4 at the same clock speeds. Intel will also today introduce a 3.4GHz version of the Northwood Pentium 4, and a 3.4GHz version of the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition chip aimed at gamers.

Among the new features introduced with Prescott is version 3 of Intel's streaming SIMD extensions (SSE3). These comprise 13 new instructions, mainly focused on boosting audio and video encoding and streaming. The new chip design also has 1MB of L2 cache, twice that of earlier Pentium 4 chips; and the L1 instruction and data caches have also doubled in size.

According to Intel's own benchmarks, a 3.4GHz Prescott shows a performance increase of about 12 percent over the previous top Pentium 4 chip running at 3.2GHz. The improved Hyper-Threading in Prescott provides better support for background tasks, enabling features such as security tools to run constantly without affecting the user's work, said Intel.

"Office 2003 was written to be multi-threaded, so business users running it will see a benefit from Hyper-Threading on Prescott," said Knupffer. Prescott will replace the older Pentium 4 parts over the next few quarters, Intel said.

The first Prescott chips will be compatible with existing Pentium 4 infrastructure such as motherboards and heatsinks, but Intel is expected to move Prescott to a new chip socket architecture later this year. Firms may prefer to delay any desktop refreshment plans until after this transition.

Prescott will ship under the same Pentium 4 brand name as current chips, which may confuse some buyers. The first Prescotts will cost the same: $410 (£230) at 3.4GHz, $273 (£150) at 3.2GHz, $214 (£120) at 3GHz, and $161 (£90) at 2.8GHz.