The Intel Pentium 4 processor is set to be replaced by the Pentium D & Extreme Edition processors, which seek to give Intel a lion's share of the dual core processor market. This year Intel has chosen to go multicore.
With Pentium 4, Intel had reached the economic limit of being able to deliver awesome core speeds. The next logical step without dipping deep into the consumers’ pocket was to increase the number of cores per processor package. Intel seeks to do this by releasing the new dual core processors, Pentium D & Pentium Extreme Edition.
The Pentium 4 will move to 65nm fabrication in 2006 when it will be used as the basis for the 'Presler' multi-chip package. Intel said that the processor would continue to be available in its present form for the next two years. Intel expects Multicore products to eventually permeate its entire range, from notebook CPUs to the Itanium server chip.
Stephen Smith, VP in Intel's digital enterprise group said,” The transition starts in the second quarter of 2005, and over a two-year time period, substantially all our platforms will move to dual cores,"
Pentium D & Extreme Edition are the first in line of nearly 15 dual- and multicore projects under way at Intel's R & D.The basic difference between the two happens to be Hyperthreading capacity. While the Extreme Edition boasts of this feature, with two hyperthreads on each core, for a total of four hyperthreads in the processor, the Pentium D will gain Hyperthreading only in 2006 when Pentium 4 is incorporated into a multi-chip package codenamed 'Presler'.
Also on the cards is the launch of 'Yonah',the first mobile dual core chip. Intel says that the differentiation between mobile and desktop products will become even more blurred in future.
