Product: Pentium 4 1.5GHz
Company: Intel
Website: http://www.intel.com
Estimated Street Price: $848.00
Review By: Julien JAY

Introduction

    On November 20^th Intel Corporation (the world most famous CPU maker based in Santa-Clara, California) has turned a new page of its computing history by introducing its long awaited new CPU that was previously known under the code name: ‘Willamette’. Due to the fact Intel has spent millions on the Pentium brand name, this new processor is simply dubbed “Pentium 4”. Don’t let the name trick you, however. Pentium 4 has only the name and a few parts from its predecessor. This processor is the first to have a newly designed architecture since the Pentium Pro in 1995. Starting at 1.3 GHz, Intel sent us the fastest processor, the 1.5 GHz, for review purposes along with their D850GB motherboard we’ll review in detail.

Features

• Intel NetBurst Micro Architecture which represents a real technological breakthrough with a total bandwidth of 3.2 GB/s clocked at 400 MHz for an average 3X speed improvement over current CPU architectures

• New SSE2 enhanced instructions perfect for a new class of applications with more than 144 second-generation Streaming SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) instructions with a 128-bit SIMD integer arithmetic and 128-bit SIMD double precision floating point instructions, your multimedia experiences are enhanced significantly.

• Rapid Execution Engine with two ALUs (Arithmetic Logic Units) clocked at twice the core processor frequency delivering a data transfer rate of 48 GB/s

• Execution Trace Cache that stored decoded micro-ops in the order of program execution for increased performance,

• Advanced Transfer Cache Level 2 is 256 KB in size and delivers a higher data throughput channel between the Level 2 cache and the processor core

• An Advanced Dynamic Execution engine that is an out-of-order speculative execution engine that keeps the execution units executing instructions

• Enhanced floating point/multimedia providing lifelike video and 3D graphics for better gaming and multimedia experiences.

• Intel MMX compatible

• Revamped Pipeline now named Hyper-Pipelined Technology allowing more stages, faster processor execution times, and more instructions in the CPU core than ever before.

Benefits

• Enhance your broadband experience: As service providers continue to offer faster Internet connections, your processor will not only have to work harder, but smarter. With up to 1.50 GHz of raw power, the Pentium® 4 processor combined with broadband gives you incredible online performance. Plus, the Pentium 4 processor gives you the power you need to handle emerging Web technologies.

• Realistic Digital Imaging: Turn your personal computer into a video-editing studio with the Pentium® 4 processor. With its innovative Intel® NetBurst™ micro- architecture, the Pentium 4 processor has the power to smoothly run intensive multiple graphics programs simultaneously, and allows you to put the finishing touches on your digital video, 3D animation and digital photography with professional quality effects.

• Intense online gaming: The Pentium® 4 processor takes PC gaming to an amazing new level with its boost in performance and capability. Higher polygon counts and an improved floating point technology intensify 3D environments and creates lifelike movement. Sound quality is also greatly increased due to the redesigned Streaming SIMD Extensions 2.

• Advanced audio & video online: Every Pentium® 4 processor has features that enable accelerated video, speech and image processing. Talk to your fellow gamer in Russia. Speak for hours with distant relatives online. Capture the power of sight and sound with the Pentium 4 processor.

• Increase personal productivity: The Pentium® 4 processor allows you to run several complex multimedia applications simultaneously without interruption or decreased performance. This is due in part to our new set of multimedia instructions and improved floating point unit. You'll see significant improvements in the speed of this processor and the amount of work you can do at one time.