No 4 GHz because...

I have this little theory why there won't be a 4 GHz Pentium 4. Obviously, we know Prescott can scale to 4 GHz (even though this means excessive heat production). So I think the real reason must be marketing. If they bring a 4 GHz model, everybody who still believes in the MHz craze would want one. But yields are not high enough to deliver this sudden higher demand. Furthermore, people would think that once the 4 GHz limit has been 'broken', they'll also bring other 4.x GHz models, but they won't be able to fullfil this expectation...

Any thoughs?

Pretty sad situation for Intel. They've placed all their bets on Prescott and it fails. In my opinion they should use SOI and other techniques to keep the heat production down, and tweak it to reach 5 GHz and more. That would be the point where Prescott would really shine. It has a lot of pipeline stages, but that's not a bad architecture as long as you have the clock frequency.

I can hardly believe that we'll be stuck with Prescott 3.8 Ghz for almost two years as the fastest Intel desktop processor...

Intel are due to bring out dual core CPU's next year so we wont be stuck with 3.8Ghz prescotts for long.
Intel needs to release and desktop version of dothan, and they need to do it soon.

My 2.4b caps out at about 2.8Ghz but it could be the POS SiS648 chipset im using on my second motherboard.

Hmmmm... i think i have a more sound theory for why there will be no 4Ghz P4.

<A HREF="http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/041015/intel_pentium_4_1.html" target="_new">http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/041015/intel_pentium_4_1.html</A>

Check that out, its from the company reports. AMD shot Intel down and now all you see are the flames....

"If it ain't broke, fix it till it is."

"As for the 3.8 being the top end processor for 2 years, where has AMD been for the last 4 years on clock speeds?"

where has intel been on performance for the last year or more? really, your point doesnt really mean much. i agree that id liek to see amd push speeds more, but i cant blame them for not, they do already have the edge performance wise, whats pushing them to make bigger advancements? both of these comapanies react off each other, to compete against each other. they both force the other to improve. so when intel makes a move, amd reacts, or vice versa.

quite right, Intel will stop with presscotss because the architecture has had it's time and they saw that and like any good business they changed course rather than run blind ahead hoping for the best. Athlon XP got 'outdated' when the 865 875 chipsets finanlly came and intel ruled the desktop performance landscape now the athlon 64 took over. wen intel releases dothan besed desktop cpu's (dual core with 64 bit extentions) intel will take the lead again... maybe. All we get is better performance and thats all I want frankly i don(t care which brand has the best as long as it gets better and cheaper or at least affordable.

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They seemed to be flying high with the P4C's, as for pushing I would have to imagine its becomeing difficult to clock the chips further 0.09u and we dont see a new speed grade on it, something is a miss.

Xeon

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LoL you used Jews and Satanists in the same sentence.

Xeon

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yeah they did, p4c's were the pinnacle of intel's dominance, but then they semed to make a wrong choice here and there and now they have hit a wall they cant pass for a while. i agree that it seems they cant push 90nm anymore, so thats begs the question why even try using prescott on dual core...