Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1222



Just recently we brought you a quick guide to AMD's 2004 CPU roadmap, citing that Intel's was already known and easier to understand in the first place thus necessitating the guide to AMD's roadmap.

Since then, however, we have received countless requests for a similar guide to Intel's forthcoming CPUs so we went to task on preparing a similar article for Intel's roadmaps. After flipping through pages of the latest Intel roadmaps, we realized that the Intel roadmaps aren't as straightforward as we once thought.

Unlike the AMD Roadmap article, here we're focusing on CPUs and chipsets, and what better way to start out than with a quick look at information we already know.

The Socket-478 Pentium 4 roadmap has already been published here and on other sites like The Inquirer, below is just a summary of what is already public knowledge:

2004 Socket-478 Pentium 4 Roadmap
CPU
Manufacturing Process
Bus Speed
L2 Cache Size
Release Date
Pentium 4 3.4GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q1 '04
Pentium 4 3.4GHz
130nm
800MHz
512KB
Q1 '04
Pentium 4 3.2GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q1 '04
Pentium 4 3.2GHz
130nm
800MHz
512KB
Already Available
Pentium 4 3.0GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q1 '04
Pentium 4 3.0GHz
130nm
800MHz
512KB
Already Available
Pentium 4 2.8GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q1 '04
Pentium 4 2.8GHz
130nm
800MHz
512KB
Already Available
Pentium 4 2.8GHz
90nm
533MHz
1MB
Q1 '04

What's important to note here is that 3.4GHz is the end of the line for the Socket-478 Pentium 4s; we've left the Extreme Edition chips off of this roadmap but you should be able to see where they fit into the picture.

It's also interesting to note that Intel will offer 533MHz FSB versions of the Prescott based Pentium 4; these chips will not have Hyper-Threading support.

Although the Pentium 4's days are limited on Socket-478, the Prescott-derived Celerons will continue to live on the platform:

2004 Socket-478 Celeron Roadmap
CPU
Manufacturing Process
Bus Speed
L2 Cache Size
Release Date
Celeron 3.33GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q4 '04
Celeron 3.20GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q3 '04
Celeron 3.06GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q2 '04
Celeron 2.8GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q2 '04
Celeron 2.8GHz
130nm
400MHz
128KB
Already Available
Celeron 2.7GHz
130nm
400MHz
128KB
Already Available
Celeron 2.66GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q2 '04
Celeron 2.6GHz
130nm
400MHz
128KB
Already Available
Celeron 2.53GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q2 '04
Celeron 2.5GHz
130nm
400MHz
128KB
Already Available
Celeron 2.4GHz
130nm
400MHz
128KB
Already Available
Celeron 2.3GHz
130nm
400MHz
128KB
Already Available

Like AMD's multiple Socket approach, Intel will use the Socket 775 for high end (and eventually mainstream) CPUs, but keep Socket 478 around for Celeron and low end chips.

The Northwood Celerons are getting beat up pretty badly by sub $80 Bartons and even puny Durons but by adopting the Prescott core on the Celeron early, Intel might be able to pull ahead of AMD in price/performance for the entry level systems. The increased FSB frequency will help performance, as will the larger L2 cache but it will take a lot to catch up to AMD's performance in the value sector.



The New Performance Socket - LGA-775

Our Taiwanese editors were able to get us some quick snapshots of the upcoming LGA775 interface just before CES. After the upcoming round of new product mPGA478 launches, 2004 will focus more the rest of the year on the Socket 775 CPUs and motherboards.

Luckily the LGA-775 roadmap is much simpler than the Socket-478 roadmap:

2004 LGA-775 Pentium 4 Roadmap
CPU
Manufacturing Process
Bus Speed
L2 Cache Size
Release Date
Pentium 4 4.0GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q4 '04
Pentium 4 3.8GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q3 '04
Pentium 4 3.6GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q2 '04
Pentium 4 3.4GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q2 '04
Pentium 4 3.2GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q2 '04
Pentium 4 3.0GHz
90nm
800MHz
1MB
Q2 '04
Pentium 4 2.8GHz
90nm
533MHz
1MB
Q2 '04

Intel is telling their partners that they will deliver a 4GHz Pentium 4 by the end of the year, by then the 90nm process should have all of its kinks worked out and yields should be high enough to make it a possibility. Intel will also be releasing a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition (130nm Northwood core) for the LGA-775 socket in Q2.

If you're going to buy a Pentium 4 soon we would recommend waiting until next quarter, you'll have a new socket and new chipsets to go along with it.

2004 LGA-775 Celeron Roadmap
CPU
Manufacturing Process
Bus Speed
L2 Cache Size
Release Date
Celeron 3.33GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q4 '04
Celeron 3.2GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q3 '04
Celeron 3.06GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q3 '04
Celeron 2.8GHz
90nm
533MHz
256KB
Q3 '04

The Celeron is also moving to LGA-775, but only the highest clocked versions.



Chipsets

It was recently made public that Intel's upcoming chipsets - Grantsdale and Alderwood - would be called i915 and i925X respectively. We talked about those chipsets back at CES but what we didn't talk about were 915G, 915GV and 910GL. We originally thought 925X would launch only for Socket 775, and 915P for both. However, even though the roadmap is slightly vague it appears 915P will effectively replace 865PE; it will have the same performance of 875P with some extra features: PCI Express x1 and x16, Azalia Audio (Intel's AC'97 replacement), DDR2 and of course the new Southbridge which we will talk more about in a little bit.

Even though 915P will support 533MHz DDR2, we will most likely see DDR2 support showing up only on 925X motherboards. Most manufacturers we talked to during CES did not see enough differentiation between 865PE/875P, and this actually hurt sales in the long run. Even with 925X and 915P, we once again expect a PAT-like interface on 925X. Those in the industry say Intel has also made it a much more difficult enable "PAT" on Grantsdale. Other than "PAT", the only other real difference we can see is support for ECC memory on 925X. Most manufacturers we spoke with with planned to use current DDR on 915P boards, reserving DDR2 for 925X.

The new ICH6 southbridge will make its appearance with the 925/915 and makes some interesting promises. First, in any ICH6 denoted with a "/R" suffix, we will see 4 SATA interfaces whereas ICH5 only had two. As kind of a bonus, ICH6/W will provide integrated wireless. ASUS's P4P800S-E turned out to be a surprising success due to its on board wireless capabilities. Maybe Intel has learned a thing or two from its component manufacturers.

915G has all the features of 915P, but with integrated graphics. While we have no details of the graphics capabilities of the new 915G, it is reasonable to expect higher performance but nothing too impressive based on Intel's prior track record.. Intel anticipates this to be the corporate chipset of choice, and will follow up on the 915G with the 915GV and 915GL chipsets in Q3. 915GV and 915GL are basically just stripped down versions of 915G.

The roadmap coverage continues, we hope you enjoyed this one as well...

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