Intel to stop using clockspeed rating to indicate speed of processors?

It looks like Intel is soon going to stop using the clockspeed to indicate the speed of its processors. According to DigiTimes clients in Taiwan have been informed by Intel that it will employ a new naming scheme for its processors starting at the end of Q2 2004.

Intel is going to use numbers in the rage of 3xx (low-end), 5xx (middle-end) and 7xx (high-end).

Intel is expected to label each chip with a serial number after its family name, said the sources. For instance, the Pentium 4 (Prescott) 2.8GHz chip would be marked as Pentium 4 520, the 3.0GHz as the Pentium 4 530, and the 3.2GHz as the Pentium 4 540, the sources suggested.

The 700-series would cover Intel’s mobile chips like Pentium M (Dothan) processors, while the 300-series would include the company’s entry-level chips like desktop-use Celeron processors, the sources said.

The new marking is designed to reflect production positioning and main attributes, including clock speed, cache size and bus speed, within a family of chips, said the sources.

	Notebook	Desktop
700	Pentium M (Dothan) 755 2.0GHz 745 1.8GHz 735 1.7GHz 725 1.6GHz 715 1.5GHz	Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
500	Mobile Pentium 4 (Prescott)	Pentium 4 (Prescott LGA775) 570 3.8GHz 560 3.6GHz 550 3.4GHz 540 3.2GHz 530 3.0GHz 520 2.8GHz
300	Celeron M (Dothan/Banias) 340 1.5GHz 330 1.4GHz 320 1.3GHz	Celeron (Prescott) 340 2.93GHz 335 2.8GHz 330 2.66GHz 325 2.53GHz

Source: DigiTimes and X-bit Labs