Another Stepping For Prescott . . . .

Intel announced that it will come out with a D-0 stepping for Prescott. Here’s their announcement.

The following is almost certainly is happening/is going to happen:

Intel didn’t find the C-0 stepping acceptable for higher speed Prescotts; not seeing any 3.4Es out there is an indicator of that.

They’ve done a new spin on the silicon, emphasizing power conservation.

We’ll see how well they’ve done when they introduce the 3.4 and 3.6, perhaps at the end of March. Outside of perhaps a few stray 3.4Es, these chips should all be D-0 stepping chips. When the Intel tech docs get revised at that time, it will be easy enough to figure out how much power reduction they were able to achieve.

Lower speed Prescotts with the D-0 stepping will be released later. Given Intel’s track record on these things, don’t take an early May date literally. OEMs usually get these chips before the retail channel.

Historically, new steppings don’t show up in places like Internet stores until six weeks to as much as four or more months after the official Intel release date.

Whether they’ll come sooner or later is a tough call. It depends on how many C-0s Intel is cranking out now, and how well they’re selling. If there isn’t too much inventory out there, we’ll see them sooner. If there is, it will be later.

In any event, it will be the 3.4 and 3.6Es that will tell us whether or not Prescott ought to be considered by anybody to be anything less than a space heater.

If you’d like to know what the sspecs on the “E” chips will be, here it is:

Ed