Prescott Celeron Processors to Be Compatible with Current Mainboards?

by Grigoriy Gubankov
07/15/2003 | 04:52 AM

The Inquirer released some new information regarding Intel Celeron processors based on Prescott 90nm core due to be out in the first half of the next year. Probably you already know the basic specifications of the next-generation Celeron chips from our previous reports (see this news-story), but there is a ridiculous thing you probably did not know: the Intel Celeron processors on new core are reportedly compliant with the current VRM 10.0 FMB 1.0 (VIN 1.0) specifications.

All those who acquired a shiny-new i865P/i865PE or even i875P platform earlier this year or will get it throughout a month from now will be able to use Celeron CPUs based on the Prescott core despite of the fact that such mainboards will not be able to work with Prescott processors, as we revealed on the 11^th of July (see this news-story). It is a bit strange since Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron processors have almost no differences, other than PSB speed and cache size. Frankly speaking, I have no idea in this case, why the code-named Prescott processor needs new VRMs and Celeron based on the same core does not. Oh, well, maybe the causes for this nasty fact for computer hardware enthusiasts are more in marketing, rather than in technical areas.

Probably there will be no sense in downgrading from a 3.0GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor to a Celeron chip even with more advanced micro architecture. As a consequence, this news-story can hardly bring a relief to the unlucky owners of the top Socket 478 platforms of today. The latter now pin a lot of hopes to companies like PowerLeap, who may introduce a converter to allow using Prescott on current mainboards. The only problem is that such solution will require a special cooler, hence, will hardly make it into the market.

Of course, all the information above is totally unofficial and may not be correct, just as my assumptions here. Moreover, since Intel changes its plans very rapidly these days I am not able to exclude other scenarios, such as announcement of Prescott Celeron CPUs only for Socket T form-factor in order to promote PCI Express-based platform. Certainly, they will not be able to function using current mainboards.