Intel’s first desktop dual-core processor, ‘Smithfield’, will launch next quarter as the Pentium D, the chip giant revealed today.

It also admitted that the part will not support a key feature of all the most recent generations of the Pentium 4: HyperThreading.

Instead, HT will be used to differentiate the dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition - note that ‘4′ is being dropped here, too - from the D. Both D and EE varieties will operate across an 800MHz frontside bus operating through an LGA775 socket.

Intel today spoke of the EE as a “four-thread” processor and the D as a “two-thread” chip.

The 1066MHz FSB found on the latest P4EE, the 3.73GHz model launch last week, will not be a feature of initial dual-core products. But Intel claimed the dual-core model will run 50-65 per cent faster, despite the lower clock speed.

Both D and EE chips will be fabbed at 90nm and represent single-die products, Intel Digital Enterprise Group VP Stephen Smith said today. The chip maker has always avoided coming clean on this until now, leading some - including us - to assume that Smithfield might simply be a pair of Prescott processors packaged together.

The Pentiums D and EE will be launched next quarter, the latter as the 3.2GHz 840. It comprises 230m transistors - as will the D; HT being disabled rather than missing altogether in the lesser processor. Both with support the 64-bit addressing EM64T system and the Execute Disable Bit. The chips measure 206mm²

Source: The Register