>Continued from part 2<
Intel has even gone one step farther this time. In an attempt to do what can only an attempt at deception, it named a set of features in the P4 "Netburst." They are actively marketing the processor as being the "center of your digital world" and being able to make your internet experience come to life. Let me be the first to tell you that "Netburst" will enhance your "Internet" about as much as forgetting to take baths will enhance your social life.
"Netburst" is just Intelese for a Quad pumped 100 Mhz bus "400 Mhz" along with a few other "features" of the p4 design.
As if you need another reason at this point not to buy a P4, there is one more, and it's a big one. Intel will be changing the P4 later this year, and as a result the socket it fits in will be different. This means if you buy a P4 now you won't be able to upgrade it to a faster one in as little as 3 months.
Intel only released the current P4s because their market share was rapidly being lost to AMD. In doing so they have basically screwed the people who are buying the current P4s for upgrading.
If you want to read even more in depth why the P4 is not the best processor out there, I suggest:
www.emulators.com/pentium4.htm Guys, please don't fall for clever marketing and just assume the P4 is the better processor. The truth is it's not. So far most people haven't been swayed by Intel's ads, and the P4 only has about a 1% market share in it's first quarter of release. Recently though Intel has milked out most of the uneducated consumers with lots of cash to burn. They have slashed the prices of the P4s by as much as 60%, but the AMD is still cheaper AND Faster!
All is not lost for Intel though, the p4 does have some very good features, but unfortunately it has a number of flaws that prevent it from being the performer it should be. Most of those flaws are caused by Intel cutting costs by disabling or removing parts of the processor to save money. Intel had better hurry though, in 2 months AMD will release it's next version of the Athlon core. The codename of this is "Palomino." Among it's improvements are much reduced power consumption, possibly even more cache memory, and the ability to go to higher clock speeds. The newer Kt133a and AMD 761 ddr Motherboards will be able to use these chips with no more than a simple bios flash. The Palomino core should easy allow Athlon to reach 2 Gig by the first part of next year. It already exists, but AMD is waiting to release it because it's current Athlons are more than enough to stand up to the P4. The next 6 months should see a massive ramp up in clock speeds by both Intel and AMD just like last year.
I hope those of you who have made it to the end of this post have learned something about CPUs. My hope is that you now have the ability to recognize that clock speed comparisons between 2 different types of processors are almost totally meaningless.
Anyone still want a P4?
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bloom25
-MAW-
(Formerly of the)
THUNDERBIRDS
