Computex Half-a-World Away - Part 1: Intel Roadmaps Revealed

Mobile Pentium 4 - Not Dead

Despite all of the attention that has been paid to Centrino and the Pentium-M processor, Intel still sees a viable market for the Pentium 4 on the mobile side. The desktop replacement and larger thin-and-light segments will both continue to be serviced by the Mobile Pentium 4 processor.

In Q3, Intel will introduce a 3.06GHz Mobile Pentium 4 without Hyper-Threading support for the mobile market. It won't be until Q4 that we see Hyper-Threading on mobile CPUs, with the introduction of a 3.20GHz Mobile Pentium 4. Intel will then release a HT enabled 3.06GHz Mobile Pentium 4; as to why Intel doesn't just wait or enable HT initially with the first 3.06GHz mobile chip, your guess is as good as ours. It seems detrimental to the market to release two 3.06GHz parts, one with and one without Hyper-Threading within such a close time period of one another.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the mobile platforms will not receive the new 800MHz FSB, nor will they receive derivatives of the new chipsets (865/875) anytime soon - thus the 3.2GHz Mobile Pentium 4 is still a 533MHz part. For battery life, the 3.2GHz Mobile Pentium 4 is probably going to be one of the worst choices to make - but for the target market of desktop replacements, battery life isn't a major concern.

In the Q1 '04, Intel will introduce the Mobile Prescott processor at 2.66, 2.80, 3.06, 3.20 and 3.46GHz, all using the 533MHz FSB and all equipped with Hyper-Threading support. In the following quarter, Intel will ramp clock speeds above 3.46GHz for the Mobile Prescott CPUs. The Mobile Prescott should have all of the same features as the desktop CPUs, including the large 1MB L2 cache (not large by Dothan standards, but by all other standards); the Mobile Prescott is, of course, built on Intel's 90nm manufacturing process.