Editing Pentium 4 (section)

==={{Anchor|WILLAMETTE}}Willamette===
[[File:Intel Pentium 4 1,5 GHz Willamette boxed.JPG|thumb|225px|Pentium 4 Willamette 1.5&nbsp;GHz boxed]]
[[Image:KL Intel Pentium 4 Wilamette.jpg|right|thumb|180px|Pentium 4 Willamette 1.5&nbsp;GHz for [[Socket 423]]]]
[[File:Pentium 4 1,5 GHz Willamette with Intel 850 Chipset.jpg|thumb|225px|Pentium&nbsp;4 1.5&nbsp;GHz (Willamette) with Intel 850 chipset]]
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 | footer = Pentium 4 Willamette ([[Socket 478]]), top and bottom side showing contact pins
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Willamette, the project codename for the first NetBurst microarchitecture implementation, experienced long delays in the completion of its design process. The project was started in 1998, when Intel saw the Pentium II as their permanent line. At that time, the Willamette core was expected to operate at frequencies up to about 1&nbsp;GHz. However, the [[Pentium III]] was released while Willamette was still being finished. Due to the radical differences between the [[P6 (microarchitecture)|P6]] and NetBurst microarchitectures, Intel could not market Willamette as a Pentium III, so it was marketed as the Pentium 4.

On November 20, 2000, Intel released the Willamette-based Pentium 4 clocked at 1.4 and 1.5&nbsp;GHz. Most industry experts regarded the initial release as a stopgap product, introduced before it was truly ready. According to these experts, the Pentium 4 was released because the competing Thunderbird-based [[AMD Athlon]] was outperforming the aging Pentium III, and further improvements to the Pentium III were not yet possible.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} This Pentium 4 was produced using a 180&nbsp;nm process and initially used [[Socket 423]] (also called socket W, for "Willamette"), with later revisions moving to [[Socket 478]] (socket N, for "Northwood"). These variants were identified by the Intel product codes 80528 and 80531 respectively.

On the test bench, the Willamette was somewhat disappointing to analysts in that not only was it unable to outperform the Athlon and the highest-clocked Pentium IIIs in all testing situations, but it was not superior to the budget segment's [[AMD Duron]].<ref name="anandtech-001120">{{cite web | url=http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1360&p=1 | title=Intel Pentium 4 1.4GHz & 1.5GHz | author=Anand Lal Shimpi | publisher=Anandtech | date=November 20, 2000}}</ref> Although introduced at prices of $644 (1.4&nbsp;GHz) and $819 (1.5&nbsp;GHz) for 1000 quantities to OEM PC manufacturers{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} (prices for models for the consumer market varied by retailer), it sold at a modest but respectable rate, handicapped somewhat by the requirement for relatively fast yet expensive Rambus Dynamic RAM ([[RDRAM]]). The Pentium III remained Intel's top selling processor line, with the Athlon also selling slightly better than the Pentium 4. While Intel bundled two RDRAM modules with each boxed Pentium 4, it did not facilitate Pentium 4 sales and was not considered a true solution by many.

In January 2001, a still slower 1.3&nbsp;GHz model was added to the range, but over the next twelve months, Intel gradually started reducing AMD's leadership in performance. In April 2001 a 1.7&nbsp;GHz Pentium 4 was launched, the first model to provide performance clearly superior to the old Pentium III. July saw 1.6 and 1.8&nbsp;GHz models and in August 2001, Intel released 1.9 and 2&nbsp;GHz Pentium 4s. In the same month, they released the [[List of Intel chipsets#Pentium 4 chipsets|845 chipset]] that supported much cheaper [[Synchronous dynamic random-access memory#PC133|PC133 SDRAM]] instead of RDRAM.<ref name="TRP4SDRAM">{{cite web | url=http://techreport.com/articles.x/2843 | author=Scott Wasson |title=The Pentium 4 gets SDRAM: Two new chipsets | publisher=Tech Report | date=September 10, 2001}}</ref> The fact that SDRAM was so much cheaper caused the Pentium 4's sales to grow considerably.<ref name=TRP4SDRAM /> The new chipset allowed the Pentium 4 to quickly replace the Pentium III, becoming the top-selling mainstream processor on the market.

The Willamette code name is derived from the [[Willamette Valley]] region of Oregon, where a large number of [[Intel]]'s manufacturing facilities are located.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}