Introduction

The processor race between Intel and AMD seems to be reaching a fever pitch. Sure, there have always been the usual one-up man's ship between the two companies, with AMD releasing a new Athlon XP and Intel following this up with a Pentium 4 speed increase, or vice versa. This all changed in 2002, with the introduction of new Pentium 4 and Athlon XP models... on the same day, no less.

These two processor releases are truly like night and day. The Athlon XP 2000+ is simply a core speed increase to the existing core design, while Intel has gone a bit further with their newest Pentium 4. Northwood has been the word of the day with many hardcore enthusiasts, and some have gone so far as to call it the "real Pentium 4". The Northwood is finally here and Intel has introduced this new core in two initial speeds: the flagship Pentium 4-2.2 and the retro Pentium 4-2.0A.