With Intel’s new Core 2 Duo here to stay, it’s time for the Pentium 4 to retire, just like its siblings of long ago. Before we say goodbye, let’s take a look at the history of this long-enduring CPU.

When Intel discovered the Pentium 3 could not top clock speeds higher than 1.2 GHz, they went out to find a new CPU architecture. In November of 2000, the first Pentium 4 processors, code named “Willamette”, launched. Running at clock speeds ranging from a meager 1.4 GHz to 1.5 Ghz, they used a new socket numbered 423. What made the Pentium 4 different from its older family members was its new architecture, NetBurst. Unlike previous Intel processors, the Pentium 4 wasn’t based on the Pentium Pro architecture, which had met its physical limits with the Pentium III. The new Pentium 4 also featured a 400 MT/S FSB that used a quad pumped bus and the CPU came with the SSE2 instruction set. Though it ran just as fast or slower than the fastest Pentium 3s in many applications, Intel had to release the Pentium 4 to compete with AMD, who had already beat them to the 1 GHz mark, causing embarrassment that still haunts Intel to this day. Luckily for AMD, the early Pentium 4s were a failure. Because they were originally designed by Intel to only be clocked at 1 GHz back in 1998, they were grossly underpowered and even performed worse than even low-end Athlon CPUs of the time! At this time, AMD was well ahead of Intel in terms of both processor technology and pricing.

By early 2002, Intel had gotten back on track and released their Northwood revision of the Pentium 4. It increased speeds to 2 and 2.2 GHz and doubled the cache from 256 to 512 KB. Later that year, Intel increased Northwood’s clock speeds even more! By November of 2002, Northwoods were available with clock speeds as high as 3.06 GHz. To Intel’s delight, AMD had nothing to match Northwood’s power at the time. With Northwood also came a new platform, socket 478, and the ability for hyper threading. However, Intel disabled hyper threading on all of its Northwoods with the exception of the 3.06 GHz model. The changes introduced in Northwood compared to Willamette were large and some thought the CPU should have been called the “Pentium 5″.

In late 2003, Intel announced the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition to remove attention from AMD’s recently released Athlon 64 and Athlon FX CPUs. These new CPUs, aimed at hardcore gamers, packed an additional 2 MB of L3 cache and a 3.46 GHz clock speed, though later versions clocked in at 3.73 GHz. By early 2004, Northwoods were also running at speeds as high as 3.4 GHz. In that same year, however, Intel brought Northwood’s reign to an end with the release of Prescott, a major rework of the Pentium 4 architecture. Prescott was different from earlier Pentium 4 revisions in that it used a 90mm process, had more cache, used Socket 775, and was easier to overclock than Northwood. On the bad side of things, Prescotts were notorious for their high power usage and heavy heat output. Though Intel planned to release a 4 GHz Prescott, they only reached 3.8 GHz because of the architecture’s thermal issues (though some enthusiasts overclocked their Prescotts well past 4 GHz). Performance wise, Prescotts generally performed worse than their Northwood brothers in gaming but better in multimedia applications and encoding. But at this time, AMD’s processors were not only cheaper than Intel’s, but they also performed better in gaming and used less power. In 2005, Intel released Prescott 2M, which were the first Pentium 4s to support EMT64. Though they also had more cache than a normal Prescott, the change yielded few gains in terms of performance. In the early months of 2006, Intel launched the final revision of the Pentium 4, Cedar Mill. It featured a 65nm core and lacked the thermal issues of Prescott CPUs.

With the release of Core 2 Duo processors on July 27, 2006, the Intel Pentium 4 was discontinued by Intel. Since then, it has instituted huge price cuts (as high as 60%) on Pentium 4s. Though the Pentium 4 was a good CPU, it is heavily underpowered compared to the Core 2 Duo and is not as good as competing AMD Athlon CPUs. The Pentium 4 has lived a long life, lasting through its many triumphs and failures. Like all old technology, it’s time for it to take its place in the graveyard of bits and bytes.