Introduction

When Intel first announced the Pentium 4 CPU and its changes, we all believed that Intel would once again take its place as head of the super-fast processors. On release date we found ourselves questioning this. When tested against benchmarks of the time, Intel's Pentium 4 processor at the same clock speeds as the AMD Athlon (e.g. Pentium 4 processor at 1.4GHz against Athlon at 1.4GHz), the Pentium 4 showed to be lagging well behind its AMD competitors, and even in Office applications behind the old Pentium 3 processor. This turned out to be one of the biggest jokes in the PC industry.

Since this time, Intel has learned that the market won't follow what the Corporation wants, but rather what is faster and cheaper. Intel lost quite a bit of the market share when the Pentium 4 was released, and it wasn't until the Pentium 4 processor hit 1.8GHz and beyond that it started to prove itself as a fast all-round CPU. Introduction of the Northwood core and the i845D chipsets helped Intel reduce the costs of Pentium 4 systems, and improving speeds, performance and that dreaded word all CPU makers don't want to know about, "Overclocking".

Intel released its new 2.8GHz Pentium 4 CPU and it was the fastest P4 to hit the retail market. Now with rumours of Celeron CPU's being made on the Pentium 4 core with 400MHz FSB, and now with the 0.13um die, Intel needs something to push its flagship Pentium 4 to the top. Rumours and information coming from Intel themselves indicated that the new Pentium 4 above 3GHz would prove itself anew with its latest technology update, this being named Hyper Threading. Today we take a look at the new 3.06GHz Pentium 4 processor using this new and anticipated technology for the mainstream market.