The Intel Pentium 4 2.4 gigahertz is a class of entries into the Intel Pentium 4 brand of processors from semiconductor company Intel Corp. The Pentium 4 made its debut on November 20, 2000, and the 2.4-GHz chips were some of the first computer chips released under the brand. The 2.4 GHz number stands for the chips' processing speed.
Designation and Release Dates
Three Intel Pentium 4 CPUs have 2.4-GHz processing speed. Two of them are desktop PC processors, while the third is a laptop PC processor. The latter in particular falls under the manufacturer's Mobile Intel Pentium 4, or Intel Pentium 4-M, division, a collection of chips specifically made for mobile computers. Intel released the two desktop CPUs on April 2 and May 6, 2002. The Mobile 2.4 GHz was released a year later, on January 14, 2003.
Manufacture
The Intel Pentium 4 2.4-GHz chips were released under the code name Northwood to denote Pentium 4 CPUs that adhered to the 130-nanometer semiconductor fabrication process. The Pentium 4 2.4-GHz chips are single-core processors, which means that they have a single processing unit. The lone core was placed on a die -- a piece of semiconductor material -- that measured 131 square mm and contains 55 million processing transistors.
Front-Side Bus Speed
Apart from their applications as desktop and laptop PCs, the Intel Pentium 4 2.4-GHz chips stand apart in their front-side bus speed. This is the rate at which the CPU connects to the computer's motherboard for data transfer using the front-side bus interface. The desktop versions Intel released on April and May 2002 are referred to as the 2.4 GHz and the 2.4 GHz-B, respectively, not only because of their differing release dates but their differing FSB speeds as well. The 2.4-GHz desktop PC and Mobile Pentium 4 chips have an FSB rate of 400 MHz, while that of the 2.4-GHz-B desktop CPU is higher at 533 MHz.
Other Features
Each 2.4-GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor has a 512KB Level 2 cache, which is a secondary memory bank that it uses for high-speed access to computer data. They also have 32-bit instruction sets, which means that 32 bits is the maximum data size they accommodate. While the desktop versions have a maximum power consumption of 59.8 watts, the 4-M version is more energy efficient at 35 watts.
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