The combination of a 400bhp V8 engine, sexy curves and Ferrari Red…wait, you meant the Pentium 4, not the 360 Spider?

Mainly, the Pentium 4's new architecture (P7) lends Intel's latest processor to a greater degree of scalability than previous generations. Most significant is the 20-stage pipeline, which has been implemented in the P7 design. The Pentium III makes use of a 12-stage pipeline, requiring a greater number of transistors per pipeline stage. Similarly, AMD's Athlon incorporates a 10-stage pipeline, limiting both manufacturers capability to ramp processor speeds much further on current transistor processes.

Intel's solution has been to break the pipeline of the Pentium 4 into 20 stages, allowing more flexibility in transistor layout. In order to keep the pipeline well-fed, Intel had to take a different approach in their design, including a couple of stages that do nothing more than move data. The purpose of these stages is to provide extra time for data to move from one side of the chip to the other, making sure future speed ramps are uninhibited by timing caveats. Coupled with a further-refined 180nm manufacturing process, Intel has been able to launch this new design at 1.5GHz, with quite a bit of room to move as more advanced lithography techniques get implemented.

The question that now begs to be answered: Does a ramp up in clock frequency justify the loss of instructions per clock cycle inherent with the new design?

At the Pentium 4's launch, we had to conclude the Pentium 4's clock speed did not sufficiently compensate for the loss of instructions per second. In the integer-dependant applications available today, AMD's Athlon running at 1.2GHz was able to best the flagship 1.5GHz Pentium 4, despite Intel's dominance in floating-point applications. Factoring in a hefty price tag, there wasn't much of a contest.

Now that the Pentium 4 has fallen below that $1,000 mark, we decided to dust it off and crank it up. If the Pentium 4 is to triumph, it will definitely be at the higher speed grades, where the Athlon and Pentium III just can't go currently due to design and manufacturing limitations (copper interconnects and all). Additionally, when the 130nm variant, codenamed Northwood, sees the light of day in Q3 of this year, frequencies will be far more flexible. Think of it this way - 180nm is first gear. Once that manufacturing process "redlines," Intel will downshift into the 130nm process (P680), which will give them much more room to expand (in addition to higher volume). By that point, the Pentium 4 should be operating at 2.0GHz.

That's the third quarter of this year though. We can't wait that long.