PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Pentium 4

By late 2000, Intel found itself in a conundrum. In March of that year, AMD had forced Intel’s hand by releasing an Athlon running at 1 GHz. Intel planned to release a 1.0 GHz version of its flagship processor, the Coppermine-core Pentium III, but not until much later. The Athlon/1.0G introduction was a wakeup call for Intel. It had to ship a Pentium III/1.0G immediately if it was to remain competitive on clock speed with the Athlon. One week after the Athlon/1.0G shipped, Intel shipped a Pentium III running at the magic 1.0 GHz.

The problem was that the Pentium III Coppermine core effectively topped out at about 1.0 GHz, while the Athlon Thunderbird core had plenty of headroom. For the next several months, AMD shipped faster and faster Athlons, while Intel remained stuck at 1.0 GHz. And to make matters worse, AMD could ship fast Athlons in volume, while Intel had very low yields on the fast Pentium III parts. Although 1.0 GHz Pentium IIIs were theoretically available, in reality even the 933 MHz parts were hard to come by. So Intel had to make the best of things, shipping mostly sub-900 MHz Pentium IIIs while AMD claimed the high end. Intel must have been gritting its collective teeth.

Adding insult to injury, Intel attempted unsuccessfully to ship a faster Pentium III, the ill-fated Pentium III/1.13G. These processors were available in such small volumes that many observers believed they must be almost handmade. Adding to Intel’s embarrassment, popular enthusiast web ...