Japanese press reports about pre-order campaigns recently started by some local stores on Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processors at 3.20GHz. The shops promise to deliver the actual chips early next month, but the pricing is not likely to be affordable.

Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition CPU is built upon a server core known under Gallatin code-name to offer loads of brute power by incorporating 2MB L3 cache in desktop processor. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition is fully compatible with existing Socket 478 infrastructure based on i865PE/i865G and i875P core-logic and supporting the 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus, but some mainboards will require a new BIOS version to recognize the CPU correctly. With 512KB of L2 cache and 2MB of L3 cache, Intel probably wanted to offer an alternative to AMD’s high-end Athlon 64 FX-51 CPUs with 1MB of L2 cache that has been available for about a month time now. However, firstly discussed during IDF 2003 show in September, the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition CPU is still not available in retail. Moreover, some large PC OEMs, for example, Dell, are not currently shipping systems powered by the new chip.

Japanese stores, who offer to pre-order the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor from the first batch, ask $1033 per chip. They indicate that initially there will be a very limited supply of Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processors at 3.20GHz and it makes sense to order one now.

US-based online stores listed in X-bit labs’ “Check Prices” section did not catalogue Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition products at press time. Visitors may check availability of Intel’s new chip in real-time mode using this link every time they wish to.