3GHz Intel Pentium 4 fest kicks off

RIGHT. There´s a new Intel CPU out today… It's called the Pentium 4 3.06GHz processor, and Intel is making a bit of a song and a dance about it and we'll tell you all about that later.

In the meantime, the world and his faithful pooch have posted reviews of this chip and we'll list a few of them here.

First up though, from what we've gleaned from these reviews so far, the 3.06 P4 is a bit of a glutton. It draws up to 30 per cent more power than an Athlon, for example and Intel also bumps the voltage of the chip up and these two facts together mean the chip company will have to watch its thermals. Indeed, if the P4 is really as scaleable as Intel claims it is, something will have to give in order for it to be able to sneak any higher up the Gigahurtz chart, we feel.

Anyhow, here come the reviews in no particular order:

Aceshardware here feels the P4 3.06GHz is far too expensive for most hardware enthusiasts, though they reckon it's been hotly anticipated.

X-bit labs finds Hyper-Threading extremely interesting. They throw a bunch of tests at it over here.

Hexus.net has the UK perspective over here.

Tech Report hit the chip with a "brutal" suite of benchmarks over here.

HardwareReview posts a guide to Hyper-Threading here, along with its chip review here .

Hardware Analysis focuses on SMP, SMT and the advantages and disadvantages of this new-fangled Hyper-Threading technology over here.

TweakTown says the Pentium 4 processor at 3.06GHz certainly means business over here.

HotHardware posts benchmarks and checks out the overclockability over here.

SimHQ says it comes at the chip from a simulation perspective over here.

Keeping the Germans' end up, Hartware.net has a review here. And here's a translation. Hard Tecs 4U chips in with its two penn'orth over here (in translation, that is).

TecChannrel posts its initial thought ahead, it says of a very detailed analysis tomorrow. That's here.

Elsewhere, life seems to continue as normal. The Frenchmen over at VTR Hardware have a look at Gigabyte's GA-7VAXP KT400 motherboard. here.

PC Gaming Xtreme has a review up of Vantec's new VA4-C0470 Heatsink, over here.

The Source fiddles about with the Epox 8k3a+. You'll find their thoughts tucked in between our stories over here.

And UK Gamer has published it's review of Soyo's flagship Socket A motherboard, the SY-KT400 DRAGON Ultra Platinum. All is not perfect with the board, they say, over here.

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