Intel Pentium 4
Intel
Specifications
- CPU
- Pentium 4 @ 1.4 – 3.8 GHz (NetBurst microarchitecture)
- Memory
- 128 MB – 2 GB DDR / DDR2
- Storage
- 40 – 250 GB ATA / SATA HDD; DVD writers
- Display
- AGP then PCIe, GeForce / Radeon
- OS
- Windows XP
- Intro price
- $1,500 – $2,500 systems
The machine
Intel bet on a long, narrow pipeline that could be clocked very high. The marketing worked for a while; the engineering didn't. NetBurst topped out around 3.8 GHz, hot enough to warm a small room, and Intel quietly killed the project a few years in.
Why it matters
The peak — and the end — of the megahertz wars. The replacement architecture (Core, derived from the mobile Pentium M) brought sanity back, and 'efficiency per watt' replaced clock speed as the metric that mattered.