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Intel's New CPU Naming System

In May of this year (2004) Intel began implementing its new naming system which consists of a processor family, individual processor name, and then a three number sequence.

Here is an example of the new format: Intel Pentium 4 550

What does it mean?
The processor belongs to the Pentium family.
The processor name is Pentium IV.
The processor is a part of the 5XX group, which has been exclusively assigned to the Pentium IV processors.

What it boils down to is that any serious builder will still have to check the complete specs to know which chip to choose when building a new box. However, Intel's goal was to 'inform' consumers about which processor is running on a given system. So, you would think that a higher or lower the numerical sequence might mean something. Wrong! Check out this direct quote from the Intel Site:

    "A higher number within a processor family can indicate more processor features, more of a specific processor feature, or a change in architecture. Note that in some cases, a higher number processor may potentially have more of one feature and less of another."

Translation: While the numerical sequence does indicate the group, i.e., 5XX = P4, it does not necessarily indicate processing power or bus speed. I don't know why they changed the naming system. I guess the GHz in the name scared away the folks that cannot find the power button. *head desk* Oh well...

Here are some of the new chips, along with their basic specs for comparsion:

Intel Pentium 4 550 3.4Ghz / 1MB Cache / 800 FSB

Intel Pentium 4 540 3.2Ghz / 1MB Cache / 800 FSB

Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0Ghz / 1MB Cache / 800 FSB

Intel Pentium 4 520 2.8Ghz / 1MB Cache / 800 FSB

These new chips have no pins. Instead they use contacts and a new socket, Socket 775 or LGA775. The new LGA775 mobos have new chipsets to match, Intel 915P Express and Intel 925X Express. Both of these chipsets have scrapped support of the AGP standard in favor of PCI Express, so there is no porting AGP graphics cards forward into a new box.

Intel 915P is backwards compatible and supports DDR as well as the new DDR2. It also supports CPUs with a lower bus speed (533 MHz).

Intel 925X Express is the more elite chipset and is not backwards compatible, supporting only DD2 and a FSB of 800 MHz.

Here's one of the new mobos:
Asus P5AD2 Premium
Intel 925X chipset
Intel LGA775 Pentium 4 CPU
Dual-Channel DDR2 533 (Max 4 GB)
1 x PCI Express x16 slot for discrete graphics card
2 x PCI Express x1
3 x PCI
Wireless LAN onboard
Dual Gigabit LAN
1394b/a