As has always been the case, if you want the fastest desktop CPU Intel has to offer, you better have very deep pockets. Intel's top of the line processors have always had a major step up in price over the rest of their CPU's, because Intel knows that there’s a market out there who will pay whatever it takes (to a point), to get the fastest processor money can buy. Intel has spent most of 2003 revamping their high end offerings, from their first baby steps into dual channel DDR with the E7205 to full out dual DDR 400 with the new 865 and 875 chipsets. With that accomplished, they have updated the P4”C” line with a new 3.2ghz Pentium 4. Today we’ve got a retail P4 3.2C to square off against our Athlon XP 3200+.
Intel has actually had a fairly slow year in terms of clock speeds. The 3.06ghz processor was released in November of last year. While they have made changes to the bus speed and released two new dual channel chipsets, the clock speeds of the Pentium 4 have stayed somewhat stagnant. This is perhaps due to the limitations of the 0.13 micron manufacturing process, or that massive increases in clock speed really aren’t necessary because AMD hasn’t come up with much either. Such is what happens when cores reach the end of their usable life. When the Athlon64 is released, if it puts the hurt on Intel performance wise, you can bet that the clock speeds of Prescott CPUs will rise in a hurry.
The 3.2C runs at 3.2ghz (obviously), and uses an 800mhz FSB, just like the rest of the C processors. It has the same .13 Northwood architecture, which dates back to the 1.6A (remember that ‘lil gem?). As has been the case since the death of Willamette and Socket-423, it uses the Socket-478 form factor, and has Intel's integrated nickel-plated copper heat spreader covering the CPU die. Since the chip runs on a faster 800 MHz front side bus speed, only Socket-478 motherboards using Intel's 875P (Canterwood) or 865 (Springdale) chipsets, or upcoming SiS 648\655FX and VIA’s PT800 chipsets will be able to run this chip properly. While it may work in some older E7205 or 845-PE motherboards which have unofficial 800 MHz FSB support, let’s face it, if you are going to spend $700 on a new CPU, you’ll want a motherboard that can take proper advantage of it.
The 3.2C is likely to be the last Northwood core processor. Intel was first to bring .13 die chips into the mainstream (I’m not counting Motorola processors), and while companies like TSMC are still struggling to get decent yields from their .13 processes, Intel is moving on to .09 with Prescott, which is set to see light of day later this year.
Unlike the 3200+ which has almost zero headroom for overclocking, this 3.2ghz still has room left to play. I know many of you out there will be wondering, so I used an Abit IC7-G and gradually increased Vcore. What I was able to come up with while retaining full stability in Windows was 3.6ghz, using a Zalman 7000Cu cooler. While 400mhz isn’t a huge amount compared to what the 2.4C can do with the right hardware, its still not a bad overclock for an end of the line CPU. Since I’m sure we will be seeing plenty of Pentium 5 vs. Athlon64 reviews in the coming months, I’ve decided to give these two cores one last round and see who the champion is.
