Intel plans to assign a new numbering system to its Pentium and Celeron processors in order to better illustrate their performance to consumers, according to a source familiar with the company's plans. Intel rival AMD may have helped pave the way for consumers' acceptance of model numbers. Although previous attempts to do so by companies such as Cyrix failed, AMD successfully switched its Athlon chip to a model number system more than two years ago.
Under Intel's number system, the difference between two chips in the same family would be more clearly marked out. For example, within the Pentium 4 family, it would be easier to distinguish the capabilities of an older Northwood-design 2.6GHz Pentium 4 chip with 512KB of cache and a 533MHz bus, compared with a newer Prescott 2.8GHz chip with 1MB of cache and an 800MHz bus.
News source: news.com
