Intel is planning to introduce over the coming months eight new Pentium 4 processors utilizing a new packaging technique. Among the new chips will be the company"s first workstation processors with 64-bit extensions technology, according to a document posted on Intel"s Web site. The forthcoming chips were revealed within a Product Change Notification (PCN) document posted to Intel"s Web site that contained details about power management and security enhancements planned for the Pentium 4. Hardware enthusiast Web side XbitLabs.com first reported on the document. Intel regularly distributes PCNs to hardware developers and customers to inform them of upcoming changes to existing products or plans to discontinue older products.
Coming Soon
Five of the eight new chips will launch alongside the Grantsdale and Alderwood chipsets on June 21, an Intel spokesperson confirms. Grantsdale and Alderwood are new chipsets that come with support for the PCI Express interconnect technology and DDR2 memory. Those five Pentium 4 chips will be introduced at clock speeds ranging from 2.8 GHz to 3.6 GHz. They will be labeled with Intel"s new processor numbering system, starting with a 520 label for the 2.8-GHz chip and scaling up to a 560 label for the 3.6-GHz chip, according to the PCN.