Buying Intel desktop CPUs is now a numbers game
 

YOU EITHER HAVE HAD to have filled in the football pools for your dad to understand the permutations of Intel desktop processors these days, or have one of those minds that loves tables, classifications, numbers and abbreviations.
Therefore, we offer you the latest INQ crib sheet on Intel single core desktop processors knowing full well that in 2006 it will be more complicated still. And if you were to attempt to perm the AMD "PR" numbers against the Intel numbers, then you'd probably only end up going plumb crazy and earning the nickname "Mad".

The "J" in the table below refers to a stepping which supports the anti virus NX bit. EIST represents "enhanced speedstep", VT is Vanderpool, Prescott is a 90 nanometre process.

Armed with this, we suggest you approach your typical computer superstore agent and try and narrow down which CPU you'll be getting in your machine.

You might also want to ask him or her what benefits Vanderpool (VT) and HT (Hyperthreading) bring to the party while you're at it. But it's obvious from the below you can't rely on chip speeds as a measure any more - there's parallelism on a grand scale in these processors.

Once we've laid down for a while, we'll see if we can have a bash at tabulating the Celeron D processors. Currently, the dual cores are a doddle and don't really need a table. But that's yet... Note. Not all of these processors numbered below are available yet.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23892

Who buys Intel lately? ;)