Intel Pushes Pentium 4 Past 3 GHz

Intel plans to release on November 14 its fastest Pentium 4 processor yet for desktop systems. The chip will also be Intel's first desktop model with hyperthreading, a technology that is already present in its Xeon server processors and that allows multiple software threads to run more efficiently on a single processor.

The 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 processor is expected to be unveiled in systems from multinational PC vendors, according to information about the launch event from Intel in Europe. A spokesperson for Intel in Europe declined to comment further on the availability of systems with the new processor.

Hyperthreading eliminates the wasted clock cycles caused by a single-threading processor in queuing up its next set of instructions, said Peter Kastner, chief research officer for Aberdeen Group in Boston.

"We would expect the performance uptake of the 3.06-GHz processor will be considerably more than the 200-MHz [clock speed increase] from the 2.8-GHz Pentium 4," he said.

Performance Boost

Most modern software is written with multiple threads. An example of multithreaded software is the latest version of Microsoft's Word, which comes with an automatic spelling checker that runs in the background while the user types, Kastner said.

This background operation is a software thread that doesn't require much processing power, so today's processors can handle the swapping back and forth between software threads, he said.

"You won't see a heck of a lot of difference in Word, but software like [Adobe Systems'] Photoshop or video-rendering software will benefit considerably," he said.

Another benefit of hyperthreading is that it is a proven technology, having been in Xeon processors since February, Kastner said. Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, will likely include hyperthreading in all of its future Pentium 4 processors, he said.

Joris Evers of the IDG News Service contributed to this report.