Intel Socket 775 processors

After having a P3 Celeron 1.3 Ghz for over 3 years, I've decided to upgrade soon. Now, I'm aiming for 3Ghz as of right now, P4 is quite expensive...

After reading for several websites, I feel interested with Intel Pentium IV Socket 775.

Here are some points of it:

• Socket 775 becomes a leading platform for Intel processors, but Socket 478 will be supported for a long time. However, all the novelties will in the first place be announced for Socket 775
• LGA775 will become the world-first x86 desktop platform with DDR2 support
• LGA775 processors will be marked using processor numbers instead of real clock rate. For example, today we'll test two such processors: Pentium 4 550 (3.4GHz) and Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz).
• Along with the new processors, the company announces two chipsets: Intel 915P Express and Intel 925X Express. The former is positioned for low and middle-end systems and supports both DDR2 and DDR. Intel 925X Express is designed for high-performance desktops and workstations and supports DDR2 only.
• Both chipsets do not support AGP. Instead there's higher-speed PCI Express x16. For other devices the usual PCI backward compatibility is provided along with up to 4 x PCI Express 1x slots.

Let's look at their appearance here.

Socket 775 CPUs do not have pins. Instead they feature flat contact pads, while pins are in the socket. However, let's get back to the new socket and it's peculiarities and look at diagnostic readouts. This time, along with CPU-Z results we provide CPU Info tab of RightMark Memory Analyzer. The latter is not finished yet, but even in the state it is, it did a good job.

And again CPU-Z considers Prescott Socket 775 a server CPU! Actually all these screenshots just indicate that you shouldn't believe such software right after new announcements. While it won't mistake in clock rate, instruction sets and cache, CPU official names and core codenames might be a problem. Anyway, the latter are usually fixed within days after announcements.

to be continued...