Intel Beats AMD To 2 GHz

Just Around The Corner

The Pentium 4 processors released today at 1.9 and 2 GHz core clock are the last ones that are using the 0.18 micron 'Willamette' core. The next Pentium 4 processor, which is supposed to arrive in another couple of months as a 2.2 or 2.3 GHz version, will be equipped with the 0.13 micron core 'Northwood'. This new core will come with several enhancements of which only the increased 512 kB L2-cache size is known right now. It's the main reason why Intel 'invented' Socket478. Initially, Northwood was supposed to be launched at 2 GHz today, but good yields of Willamette at 2 GHz plus problems with Intel's 0.13 micron process delayed this launch.

Benchmarking

This time I decided against a major benchmarking battle, because the only thing we need to see is if Pentium 4 2 GHz is able to beat AMD's current top-notch processor Athlon 1400.

Benchmark Setup