p4 confusion

[ray4389]

I'm an AMD man but I still respect intel so I'm intrested in knwoing what they have to offer.

I was lookign through CPU charts and the P4s are confusing. It looks to me they shoudl have moved to the P5 and P6 by now...but w/e

AMDs seem simpler witht their namign system....but yea


So I was lookin at the charts and I saw
P4 ???ghz
P4 C
P4 E
P4 EE
P4 D
P4 ? blah blah


So what's the difference? Could anybody give me a quick synapsis or the p4s?

 

[Mabrito]

Right now the Pentium 4 processors that everyone is buying is either the following:
Pentium 4 5xx series
Pentium 4 6xx series
Pentium D
Pentium M

The Pentium 4 5xx series uses the LGA 775 socket and the Prescott core. They have 1mb of L2 cache. They are also based on the 90nm process. They have Hyper-threading technology also.

The Pentium 4 6xx series has everything the 5xx series have, and then some. They have 2mb of L2 cache, have 64 bit extensions, uses Intel SpeedStep and Execute Disable Bit technology. If you are buying a Pentium 4, the 6xx series is the way to go. Speedstep is a technology that lowers the speed of the processor, when it isnt do anything. So if you arnt doing something and you have a 3.2Ghz processor, it might be running at 2.4-2.6Ghz ranges. If you need the full 3.2 Ghz, you wont even notice the transition from 2.4Ghz to 3.2Ghz. Some people dont like this technology, because they dont want there processor running slower than it should be. I think it was a good choice on Intel's part to develop this technology, but thats just me. Execute Disable Bit Technology stops certain line of code from being executed, to help protection against virues from running and such. This is not a Anti-virus, like some people think, and just uses this technology for protection against viruses.

Then the Pentium D is the Dual core line of processors. Really havnt been following them, so maybe someone else can give a description about them. All I know, they come in 2.8Ghz, 3.0Ghz and 3.2Ghz. The Extreme Edition has Hyper-threading in them also.

Then the Pentium M is the Intel's mobile line of processors that are doing really well. They are based on the Pentium 3 archatecture. The run at low speeds, but are good as the high end Pentium 4's, and is even beat some of the AMD's in some benchmarks. Think they start at 1.3GHz, and can go up to 2.13 GHz(if im off a little, please correct me.) They dont have 64 bit extension. We should start seeing desktop motherboards for them soon also, because they are doing so well.

 

[ray4389]

Ok I know the p4 C and other odd letters are revisions. What was changed?

And I heard alot of good things about the Pentium-Ms

They talk about this new architecture....and how they perform close to as good as normal CPUs at lower speeds...how is that? Is it running an architecture like AMDs??

 

[Scali]

Pentium-M is based on the P6 core (PPro, PII, P3), so it still has the 'old' IPC ratio (it's not really a new architecture, but a heavily modified old one).
The Athlon design also borrowed a lot from that core design, and the Athlon64 is basically the original Athlon extended to 64-bits, so the IPC ratio is still close to that of the P6, and therefore the P-M.

 

[Arkalius]

I've seen people refer to like Pentium 4 3.6E or what not... what is that?

 

[pxc]

I've seen people refer to like Pentium 4 3.6E or what not... what is that?

P4 3.6E = P4 560 (prescott core)

Really, just look it up. In the time it takes to type out a question like that, google would give you an answer quicker. Charting out every single model number difference is pointless since many of the processors aren't generally available anymore.

 

[UltimaParadox]

So what's the difference? Could anybody give me a quick synapsis or the p4s?

AS for older Revisions that might still be around

P4 Willy's nobody bothered with the codename since they were socket 423 with 400FSB and performaced lackluster, the 1Ghz P3's outperformed most of them, and I blieved the Willamettes ranged from 1.3 to 1.8, mostly used with RDRAM and SDRAM.

P4 Bs The first revision of Northwoods running at 533FSB with 512cache, on socket 478, these were a step in the right direction. The 850 and 850E chipsets were the step child generation, but did offer the most performance. Both did run off RDRAM, with the 850E using the infamous PC1066 RAM. When DDR support came with the 845 chipset that is when Intel really started catering to more of the community. the 845PEs were very popular chipsets. Scaled from 1.8 or so to 3.06 with HT.

P4 Cs Northys, running with 800FSB, 512cache, on socket 478. These were the processors to have from Intel, many of them, namely the 2.4C were monster overlockers. I still run a 2.8C on the very popular 875 chipsets. 865 and the 875s battled for performance, but the cheaper 865s in the end offered just as good performance for less money. Speeds ranged from 2.4 to 3.2, all of them were HT enabled.

P4 As Prescotts, running with 533FSB, 512 cache, on socket 478. Bascially the little brother P4, and was above a Celeron in performance, but below the full featured P4s. HT was disabled, and this processor mostly found its way in value systems thanks to its low price. Unsure of current speeds, but I Believe they started out at 2.53, and are still in production.

P4 Es Prescotts, running with 800FSB, 1meg cache, on socket 478. Very simliar to northwoods, but with a longer pipeline to allow the mhz to scale higher. The 1 meg cache tried to make up for the longer pipe to keep performance competitive. For the most part Es were not a welcome to the community thanks to high heat dissapation, and hardly any advantages over the current C revisions. 2.8 to 3.4 I Believe.

Its hard to talk about changes without getting super techinical, but this is the gist of it. Also you can not talk about Intel processors without talking about the chipset it releases with, since that usually makes or breaks the performance of that processor, since most people, myself included, prefer to run a Pentium, with an Intel chipset

 

[Scali]

Just a note... the Prescott pipe was not extended for higher clockspeeds (after all, they don't actually run faster than Northwoods, do they?). It was extended to add in the 64-bit extensions.

 

[UltimaParadox]

Just a note... the Prescott pipe was not extended for higher clockspeeds (after all, they don't actually run faster than Northwoods, do they?). It was extended to add in the 64-bit extensions.

Longer pipelines means it easier to scale in mhz, that is why the Northwoods stopped at 3.2

 

[kaulike]

> We should start seeing desktop motherboards for [Pentium Ms] soon

They have been out for a while. They are bonzo for building silent PCs.

<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813137061>

 

[ray4389]

AWESOME!

Thanx soooo much for clearing that up.

I was not familiar with P4s at all. So it seems to me each new core...or sumthin has its own revision letter?

I guess that is a bit simpler than AMDs but there are less revisons not to mention they have completely different names for each of their CPUs...maybe not. I'm jsut familiar with AMDs.

Now I was always wondering about the fsb on p4s. On my AMD 3200+ I run 200fsb and 200fsb (DDR 400) on RAM for 1:1.

On p4s is there no 1:1 or is it hard to attain or does it just not matter??

 

[Scali]

Longer pipelines means it easier to scale in mhz, that is why the Northwoods stopped at 3.2

But Northwoods are 130 nm, and don't have 64-bit.
There are tons of other reasons to extend a pipeline.

 

[Supasso]

Just a note... the Prescott pipe was not extended for higher clockspeeds (after all, they don't actually run faster than Northwoods, do they?). It was extended to add in the 64-bit extensions.

Then why there are Prescotts that don't have 64-bit extension?

 

[Donnie27]

Longer pipelines means it easier to scale in mhz, that is why the Northwoods stopped at 3.2

Northwoods goes to 3.4GHz. Cheap 30 chip (named for the number of IC on the oposite side of the core) are still viable options when the price is factored in.

Intel Processor Finder

There's no need to "Google". All of the info is at Intel's site.

Donnie27

 

[Donnie27]

Then why there are Prescotts that don't have 64-bit extension?

Same reason there Northwoods with Hyperthreading disabled. There's two arguements that always go on. #1 is Intel says the tech is built in from the start but not turned on until debugged and supported. #2. is; Intel is just building it to be obsolete in 8 to 14 months. IMHO, it's a mixture of both.

The 5xxj has disable bit and the 5x1 has 64bit support. All prescotts have the tech but only the newer models like the 561 have 64bit enabled. Disclaimer--I don't mean this as Spam but here's an example.

Intel P4 541 Pentium 4 3.2GHz 1MB 800MHz Socket LGA 775 - OEM CPU $183

Donnie27

 

[UltimaParadox]

But Northwoods are 130 nm, and don't have 64-bit.
There are tons of other reasons to extend a pipeline.

This is true, as well. I guess I was looking at Intel's roadmap of 4ghz back in the day, but they hit the mhz wall with the current pipeline

 

[UltimaParadox]

On p4s is there no 1:1 or is it hard to attain or does it just not matter??

1:1 is the ideal situation for a lot of P4s since the FSB is quad pumped meaning 200fsb x 4 = 800fsb. Thus a lot of people around here run highspeed ram hoping to hit around like 250fsb x 4 = 1ghz. Could explain why dual channel is more important in P4s than on Athlons. But I think we all found out with the P4s that came out with 1066FSB that the performance increase is dimishing as the FSB scales that high.

So if you got a good set of RAM and want to high FSB its possible, either that or 5:4 is a viable option as well.

 

[Stugots]

AS for older Revisions that might still be around

P4 Willy's nobody bothered with the codename since they were socket 423 with 400FSB and performaced lackluster, the 1Ghz P3's outperformed most of them, and I blieved the Willamettes ranged from 1.3 to 1.8, mostly used with RDRAM and SDRAM.

P4 Bs The first revision of Northwoods running at 533FSB with 512cache, on socket 478, these were a step in the right direction. The 850 and 850E chipsets were the step child generation, but did offer the most performance. Both did run off RDRAM, with the 850E using the infamous PC1066 RAM. When DDR support came with the 845 chipset that is when Intel really started catering to more of the community. the 845PEs were very popular chipsets. Scaled from 1.8 or so to 3.06 with HT.

P4 Cs Northys, running with 800FSB, 512cache, on socket 478. These were the processors to have from Intel, many of them, namely the 2.4C were monster overlockers. I still run a 2.8C on the very popular 875 chipsets. 865 and the 875s battled for performance, but the cheaper 865s in the end offered just as good performance for less money. Speeds ranged from 2.4 to 3.2, all of them were HT enabled.

P4 As Prescotts, running with 533FSB, 512 cache, on socket 478. Bascially the little brother P4, and was above a Celeron in performance, but below the full featured P4s. HT was disabled, and this processor mostly found its way in value systems thanks to its low price. Unsure of current speeds, but I Believe they started out at 2.53, and are still in production.

P4 Es Prescotts, running with 800FSB, 1meg cache, on socket 478. Very simliar to northwoods, but with a longer pipeline to allow the mhz to scale higher. The 1 meg cache tried to make up for the longer pipe to keep performance competitive. For the most part Es were not a welcome to the community thanks to high heat dissapation, and hardly any advantages over the current C revisions. 2.8 to 3.4 I Believe.

Its hard to talk about changes without getting super techinical, but this is the gist of it. Also you can not talk about Intel processors without talking about the chipset it releases with, since that usually makes or breaks the performance of that processor, since most people, myself included, prefer to run a Pentium, with an Intel chipset

You forgot 400FSB Northwood P4's. ranging from 1.6 - 2.6

 

[newls1]

Longer pipelines means it easier to scale in mhz, that is why the Northwoods stopped at 3.2

That isn't true. I have a 3.4GHz northwood on a 478 socket, 800FSB.

 

[Donnie27]

You forgot 400FSB Northwood P4's. ranging from 1.6 - 2.6

$179 - Pentium 4 2.8GHz 400MHz http://www.starmicro.net/detail.aspx?ID=542 as far as I know this is a Northwood. There's also a 400MHz FSB Xeon that could have easily been a Northwood.

Donnie27

 

[Martin Cracauer]

The Pentium 4 5xx series uses the LGA 775 socket and the Prescott core. They have 1mb of L2 cache. They are also based on the 90nm process. They have Hyper-threading technology also.

The Pentium 4 6xx series has everything the 5xx series have, and then some. They have 2mb of L2 cache, have 64 bit extensions, uses Intel SpeedStep and Execute Disable Bit technology. If you are buying a Pentium 4, the 6xx series is the way to go.

Unfortunately the bigger cache is slower so it comes out about the same speed.

The 6x0 take about 10 watts less than the 5x0 when idle, though. But of course both are very high power consumption when compared to Northwoods or other architectures.

Some 5x0 series have 64 bits, I think all the "J" variants plus a few engineering samples.

To make use of 64 bits you need a fitting chipset, motherboard and BIOS which can turn out expensive.
[/quote]

Then the Pentium M is the Intel's mobile line of processors that are doing really well. They are based on the Pentium 3 archatecture. The run at low speeds, but are good as the high end Pentium 4's, and is even beat some of the AMD's in some benchmarks. Think they start at 1.3GHz, and can go up to 2.13 GHz(if im off a little, please correct me.) They dont have 64 bit extension. We should start seeing desktop motherboards for them soon also, because they are doing so well.

You can already get P-M desktop boards, and you can get adapters to put them into certain Asus mainboard.

 

[Stugots]

$179 - Pentium 4 2.8GHz 400MHz http://www.starmicro.net/detail.aspx?ID=542 as far as I know this is a Northwood. There's also a 400MHz FSB Xeon that could have easily been a Northwood.

Donnie27

I thought there was a 2.8ghz 400FSB P4 but I wasn't sure. But now that im remembering that I'm also remembering a 3.0ghz 400FSB chip that powerleap claimed were special made by Intel for them.

 

[Donnie27]

I thought there was a 2.8ghz 400FSB P4 but I wasn't sure. But now that im remembering that I'm also remembering a 3.0ghz 400FSB chip that powerleap claimed were special made by Intel for them.

Intel will sell a few thousand special kits but not into the larger market. The 2.8GHz is a simple step up from the 2.6GHz version with no mods or anything. The one good thing about the 2.8 is that it keeps older boards like the i850s and etc... from being dumped so soon. That's not a bad price either. Now, for some bloke surfing the web and playing games about once or twice a week, this keeps that old system up at least two or three more years.

If they wanted too, Intel could build 3.2 and 3.4GHz at 400MHz FSB since even current multipliers go higher. These kind of suck though on 400MHz FSB and I think their all still based on the Northwood core. There are a bunch of 533MHz FSB Prescotts with Hyperthreading turn off. Of these, the 2.4GHz Version is cheap and a very nice overclocker.

Donnie27

 

[Donnie27]

Unfortunately the bigger cache is slower so it comes out about the same speed.

The 6x0 take about 10 watts less than the 5x0 when idle, though. But of course both are very high power consumption when compared to Northwoods or other architectures.

Some 5x0 series have 64 bits, I think all the "J" variants plus a few engineering samples.

To make use of 64 bits you need a fitting chipset, motherboard and BIOS which can turn out expensive.

You can already get P-M desktop boards, and you can get adapters to put them into certain Asus mainboard.

No. The J is for the 5xx series with NX Bit and some of the EIST technology. The 5xx series that supports AMD's X86-64 (please call it what it is) is the 5x1 series as the link shows. That's not a typo and can be found on Intel site and they point that it does support 64bit, the others (J) don't.

Unlike the 6xx and this Fall's 6x3 and 9x3 series, these 561 for example don't ship with the larger slower (17% higher latency) L2's. Yet, that L2 has higher latency than the Northwood's 512K but not as bad as the 6xx's. Anyway, an overclocked "K" since that's the next letter after "J" should scale better in apps that don't depend of cache size over anything else. Just speculation on my part though.

Donnie27

 

[Elian]

There was a 400mhz bus 3.0ghz northwood.. Just Very very rare....

 

[Donnie27]

There was a 400mhz bus 3.0ghz northwood.. Just Very very rare....

Yes, I think Intel sold a few thousand as special kits but not enough in this market. I remember Dell *might have sold some of these 400MHz FSB Northwood 3GHz's while Intel worked on the heat issues on the first Prescotts. But I'm not sure.

Donnie27

 

[Scali]

Wasn't the 3.46 GHz P4EE also with the shorter 'Northwood' pipeline?
It was a different core, because of the extra cache, but I believe it was 130 nm and had the same pipeline.

 

[Donnie27]

Wasn't the 3.46 GHz P4EE also with the shorter 'Northwood' pipeline?
It was a different core, because of the extra cache, but I believe it was 130 nm and had the same pipeline.

Gallatin Xeon Core I think but yes its still similar to the Northwood. These have a link to an L3 that the basic Northwood doesn't have. IT folks I know argue over if the Xeon is a Heavy Duty P4 or just rebadged P4 with minor addons, I'm not sure either way.

Donnie27

 

[Scali]

I think it's both
A P4 with addons, making it a heavy-duty P4

 

[Donnie27]

I think it's both
A P4 with addons, making it a heavy-duty P4

But how much of that would be carried pver to the P4EE?

Donnie27

 

[Scali]

I thought all of it.
The main differences between the Xeon and Pentium platform is in the chipset, not the CPU (multi-core functionality, ECC memory support, etc).

 

[Donnie27]

I thought all of it.
The main differences between the Xeon and Pentium platform is in the chipset, not the CPU (multi-core functionality, ECC memory support, etc).

Xeons have added features that P4 don't have like added IC chips, they're hot swappable and supposed to have slightly more ECC in the caches or at least so I read. Before the 64bit models, didn't only the Xeons support PAE?

Donnie27

 

[ScHpAnKy]

Xeons have added features that P4 don't have like added IC chips, they're hot swappable and supposed to have slightly more ECC in the caches or at least so I read. Before the 64bit models, didn't only the Xeons support PAE?

Donnie27

I'd love to see somebody hot-swap a xeon

 

[Donnie27]

I'd love to see somebody hot-swap a xeon

Sorry!

Donnie27

 

[lithium726]

I thought all of it.
The main differences between the Xeon and Pentium platform is in the chipset, not the CPU (multi-core functionality, ECC memory support, etc).

im pretty sure SMP is also a feature of the processor on p4/xeon setups - otherwise what would stop someone from making a dual s478 (or lga775) board wtih the i875?

and yeah, 130nm p4EE's are the gallatin core - exact same as the xeon one minus the SMP capability, which is just a northwood with 2mb l3 slapped on

 

[Scali]

I was talking about the P4EE vs the Xeon, since they use the same Gallatin core.
I think the SMP is still in there, you just cannot use it through a P4 socket.
And I'm quite sure that hot-swappability is a thing of the chipset and OS.
After all, by the time you want to hot-swap a CPU, isn't the CPU already in a non-working state?

 

[Donnie27]

I was talking about the P4EE vs the Xeon, since they use the same Gallatin core.
I think the SMP is still in there, you just cannot use it through a P4 socket.
And I'm quite sure that hot-swappability is a thing of the chipset and OS.
After all, by the time you want to hot-swap a CPU, isn't the CPU already in a non-working state?

Hot swappable does depend on the Platform but there are no such support for P4, just Xeons. Even Dual Sc-478 didn't work, I think VIA talked about trying it. So I said Xeon, wrongly but the point was made. There are still extra ECC, IC and etc.. I said sorry because the Xeon's platform, not the Processor is the difference.

There are Xeon Dual and Single Processor Platforms that feature the i875 Chipset. Intel Arbiture Core logic is built into the Northbrige is turned either on or off, like 64bit on some Prescotts is turned off and hyperthreading on Prescotts and Northwoods is disabled. Unlike VIA, Intel at least tries to get stuff working or supported before they ship it as a feature.

Donnie27