Huge drops on single and dual cores
INTEL HAS TAKEN a huge chunk out of the power consumption of its mainstream Pentium 4 CPUs in the twilight of their years. It put out two product notifications, 106404-01 on July 17th describing the 9xx series of PDs, and 106205-00 on August 24 to talk about the 6xx line.
Since Intel insists on the impenetrable yet information free naming schemes, I will just ignore it and give you the details.
The PDs will change their CPUID from F64 to F65, and the stepping will be known as D-0, up from the old C-1. The only thing that will affect you is it dropped the power from 130W to 95W, a massive change that is too late in the game to make a difference on the high end.
Affected parts are the 2.8, 3.0 and 3.4GHz non-VT models, and the 3.4 and 3.6GHz VT ones, along with a cryptic hint of an upcoming 3.2 model. The down side, other than the aforementioned hole at 3.2, is the need for a new BIOS to support them.
The single core models will also go on a diet, dropping from 86W TDP to 65W. The stepping follows the dual cores, going from C-1 to D-0, affecting 3.0, 3.4 and 3.6GHz parts, along with the elusive 3.2GHz model. There is no indication of a BIOS change here, but you never know, we might just luck into one later. Whatever the case, Intel is not leaving the older models alone, they are getting updated left and right. Since the CPUs will make up the majority of Intel sales for the next several quarters, this is quite a prudent move. Should you be interested in reading more, the referenced document
here from the product change notifications will bore you into seriously contemplating suicide.
The INQuirer
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