There has been a lot of speculation in recent months about whether or not the upcoming Intel Prescott CPUs will work with current Intel 848/865/875 chipset based boards. After compiling information from a variety of sources, including the web and some of our insider contacts, we think we have finally gained some real insight into this question that is on a lot of enthusiasts' minds. Let's just say there is some good news, some bad news, and some news that will make you wonder just what in the world Intel is doing.
Prescott Rumors:
First let's cover the Prescott basics that we discovered so far. We will classify most of this as rumor since Intel has not publicly substantiated any of this, but much of what is described below has been verified by many different sources. As it has been publicly discussed by more than a few websites, Intel's new Prescott processor will be making its debut in early February 2004. We will likely see CPUs built on the new 90 nanometer process scaling from the mid-2GHz range utilizing a 533MHz bus to 3.4GHz running on a 800MHz bus, with "Extreme Edition" CPUs rounding out the top of the pack. These CPUs will launch in the current Pentium 4 socket 478 packaging and will carry the Pentium 4 namesake. They will also transition over to a 775-pin package as the speeds climb. While it is currently unclear, most of the CPUs will be HyperThreading compatible though some will not.
News source: [H]ard|OCP
