While we all expect Intel Pentium 4 processors with 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus and the  Hyper-Threading technology support to come in about 1.5 months, some engineering samples of the Pentium 4 2.6C and 2.8C processors appeared in Japanese stores, who demonstrate them as something exotic, as this web-site reveals.

Intel Pentium 4 processors 2.60 and 2.80GHz (such chips will be branded as 2.60C and 2.80C to reflect their support of 800MHz QPB and the Hyper-Threading technology) are made using 0.13 micron fabrication process, utilise D-1 core-stepping and integrate 512KB of L2 cache. Just like their predecessors and successors, the new Pentium 4 CPUs will have multiply VIDs of 1.475V, 1.5V or 1.525V for processors with up to 2.80GHz core-clock and up to1.55V for 3.06GHz and above chips.

The Pentium 4 2.60C and 2.80C CPUs will cost $218 and $278 respectively at the launch presumably set on late May 2003 (see this news-story for more details and exact launch-dates).

It is interesting to note that engineering samples of the Pentium 4 processors with 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus run only at 2.60 and 2.80GHz, but not 3.0GHz. It is a known fact that the 3.0GHz models will come roughly a month earlier than slower chips, according to a roadmap we saw earlier this year, thus, Intel should ship 3.0GHz engineering samples first. Nevertheless, as we see now, 2.60C and 2.80C processors are already at hands of Japanese stores, hence, Intel may have changed its plans and now will launch not only one, but a number of CPUs with 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus and the Hyper-Threading technology support in April, but only for certain customers, such as large PC vendors, who always receive newer processors earlier than others. For instance, Dell and HP started to offer 3.0/3.06GHz Xeon CPU-based workstations a couple of weeks before the actual release of these chips.