Term of the Moment

image processor


Look Up Another Term


Definition: Pentium 4


Intel's top Pentium chip, introduced in late 2000. The successor to the Pentium III, the Pentium 4 features the NetBurst micro-architecture (see NetBurst). All Pentium 4 chips are single core, while dual-core Pentium models such as Pentium D and Pentium Processor Extreme Editions omit the "4" designation. See Pentium.

Available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions with and without Hyper-Threading, the Pentium 4 was introduced at the end of 2000 with 1.4 and 1.5 GHz clock rates. Speed later reached 3.8 GHz. Pentium 4 chips were first built with 180nm process technology and subsequently shrunk to 130, 90 and 65 nm.

From Rambus to DDR Memory
Pentium 4 chips support from 2GB to 8GB of DDR memory. Intel's first Pentium 4 chipset used only Rambus memory, but later the common DDR SDRAM. See Intel Core, dual core, Pentium and Pentium Processor Extreme Edition, Pentium 4 Processor Extreme Edition.