P4 Northwood: 50% More Throughput With 200 MHz Quad-FSB
No difference on the exterior: the P4 with 200 MHz Quad-FSB.
In nearly all cases, a platform change is required for the Pentium 4 with 200 MHz Quad-FSB. Currently, Intel is the only one who can offer the appropriate chipset, i875P, for this model. Neither SiS655 nor SiS658 nor its own i845 or i850E can support 200 MHz FSB - at least not officially. However, a few manufacturers are advertising 845 platforms that are able to support 200 MHz FSB. Two examples are the Abit BH7 and the Epox EP-4PEA800.
Going against the Intel standard: Abit offers the BH7 - an 845PE board that supports 200 MHz FSB with the P4.
The P4 appears with 200 MHz FSB in the BIOS during bootup.
The core of the Pentium 4 is still based on the Northwood layout. Internally, Intel calls the 200 MHz variant "D1" (formerly known as "NC1") in order to differentiate between the 133 MHz and 100 MHz cores. The latest flagship is the Pentium 4 HT 3.00 GHz (200 MHz FSB, 15x multiplier). As a point of comparison: its predecessor is the P4 HT 3.06 GHz, which has an even slightly higher clock frequency (66 MHz more). The Hyper-Threading technology (HT) is also part of the new model's range of functionality. The main difference, however, is in the increased bandwidth. Thus, the P4 3.00 GHz reaches 6.4 GB/s. This is calculated from 200 MHz FSB x 8 Bit x 4 (quad-pumped). Its rival AMD cannot counter with much against this. The latest Athlon XP Barton has a bandwidth of 166 MHz x 8 Bit x 2 (dual-pumped) = 2.65 GB/s. Even the previous model from Intel, the P4 3.06 GHz with 4.2 GB/s, is ahead of the latest from AMD. Intel has therefore managed to increase the bandwidth for the CPU connection by 50%.
