Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor, Together With Microsoft's Windows* XP, Brings Unprecedented Performance To Home, Business PC Users

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 24, 2001 - Intel Corporation, with its latest generation of microprocessors, and Microsoft Corporation, with its new Windows* XP operating system, continue their long and productive history of working together to bring innovation, new technologies and computing capabilities to computer users worldwide.

Windows XP has been optimized to take advantage of the Pentium 4 processor's advanced capabilities.

"The Intel® Pentium® 4 processor and Microsoft's Windows XP bring unprecedented performance and capability to today's home and business PC user. Together with Microsoft, we have created an innovative platform for the home user to take advantage of the most demanding digital media applications," said Craig Barrett, president and CEO of Intel Corporation. "The combination of Windows XP Professional and the Pentium 4 processor provides business users with the stability and headroom required by new and evolving business usage models."

The Microsoft Windows XP operating system has been designed to support the way most consumer and business users work today - taking advantage of digital media usage models and multitasking between different applications to get several things done at once. With frequencies up to 2.0 GHz and Intel® Netburst® micro-architecture, the Intel Pentium 4 processor offers powerful performance for the desktop to support these multitasking environments.

Windows XP easily handles the new digital media technologies consumers are increasingly using today, including digital video, audio, photography, communications, and 3D graphics and games. It also comes with simple, user-friendly applications. At the same time, the advanced architecture and higher execution throughput of the Pentium 4 processor boosts the performance of these digital media technologies, dramatically reduces the time it takes to work with multimedia rich information and also supports emerging technologies such as Extensible Markup Language (XML). XML is an Internet language that makes the Web smarter.

"Microsoft and Intel have worked together to ensure that Windows XP takes full advantage of the Intel Pentium 4 processor," said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft. "The combination of Windows XP and the Pentium 4 processor's unprecedented capabilities creates a platform for the future and offers both consumers and businesses tremendous multitasking power and an outstanding digital media experience."

Muscle for Multitasking
Multitasking can be viewed as a combination of foreground and background tasks running simultaneously. Foreground tasks for a typical home user might include sending and receiving instant messages while word processing, and at the same time listening to streaming music from a radio station on the Web. Background tasks might include very lengthy production processes such as burning a CD, or producing a digital video.

In a typical corporate business environment, employees multitask heavily these days. Tasks that might be running in the background include networking software, security applications, and virus protection - the tasks that IT maintains in order to make sure employees' PCs are up and running, and safe from unauthorized access and viruses. Foreground tasks for an office worker might include e-mail, or applications such Microsoft Word*, Excel* or PowerPoint*, all of which may be running at the same time.

The new Windows XP operating system has been engineered to support multitasking, and does a good job of sharing resources among applications. The Intel Pentium 4 processor provides the power needed to run multiple applications at the same time, allowing Windows XP to take full advantage of it. The Pentium 4 processor, with performance up to 2.0 GHz, plus a state-of-the-art hard disk and graphics, adds up to an ideal vehicle on which Windows XP can run. Windows XP, in turn, brings reliability, stability and a design from day one to sustain multiple events at a time.

Power for Rich Digital Media Applications
The Pentium 4 processor delivers the improved power and speed one would expect from a new generation of processors from Intel. Innovations like the new Intel Netburst micro- architecture, a high bandwidth system bus and expanded Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE-2), greatly speed up and enhance the processing of digital media including video, audio, imaging, communications and entertainment. Consumers now have the ability to create digital video productions, apply special effects to photos, or encode a large number of audio files simultaneously. For instance, benchmark tests have shown that when it comes to encoding digital video, the Pentium 4 at 2.0 GHz is up to 46 percent faster than an Intel® Pentium® III at 1 GHz.**

In the case of video, the Pentium 4 processor gives consumers the power to create or edit digital video on a computer, a task that was once only the domain of the studio expert, requiring thousands of dollars and considerable expertise.

Windows XP gives consumers the video capabilities they demand at a price point far lower than only a few years ago. Windows XP ships with an application called Windows Movie Maker*, a user-friendly, basic digital video-editing package. The Pentium 4 processor provides home users with the processing power to encode video and to create their own movies easily and quickly. Whether using Windows Movie Maker or a more advanced digital video package, consumers now have the power and capability to produce digital video on their desktop PC.

For audio, the Pentium 4 processor provides the power for highly processor-intensive tasks such as converting a CD or digital audio file into a different digital audio format. Windows XP ships with Windows Media Player* for Windows XP, which allows consumers to download, organize and playback high-quality digital audio files. When it comes to imaging, the Pentium 4 processor gives home users the power to design, edit and add special effects to high quality digital photos. For a novice user, this may be as simple as removing red eye, or cropping a picture with the Windows XP My Pictures* application. Advanced users can use sophisticated, processor-intensive third-party applications to do complex photo procedures such as "stitching," that allow users to take several views of the Grand Canyon, for instance, and stitch them together seamlessly into one large panoramic photo.

Instant messaging has been expanded through the Windows Messenger* feature of Windows XP to include voice and even video conversations, all without the need for third-party applications. The combination of a high-speed broadband connection and the high performance of the Pentium 4 processor is important in order to run good quality video and voice at the same time. The two together give home users the ability to actually see and hear friends and family all over the world, rather than simply viewing their text messages.

One of the key end user benefits of Windows XP being optimized for the Pentium 4 processor is that users at home or work can now enjoy richer, smoother 3D graphics. Windows XP comes with the latest 3D libraries from Microsoft, as well as DVD-quality playback capability. The Pentium 4 processor provides the muscle to run state-of-the-art 3D packages, so whether running the latest games, or creating CAD designs, users get fast smooth frame rates without choppiness. They also benefit from all the multimedia and 3D objects they can now put into a PowerPoint sales presentation, for example, or a family Web page.

Headroom for Emerging Technologies
Corporations invest in technologies that will support their businesses for the next several years. In business computing, it is prudent to ensure that any new purchase can handle the most promising emerging technologies: XML and Peer-to-Peer computing.

XML promises to usher in the next era of interactive computing. The hallmark of the current era, which began around the Windows* 98 timeframe, is the ability to include hyperlinks to web pages directly from a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document.

New XML technologies extend the interactive power of the user beyond hyperlinks. XML allows users to link out from a document over the Internet directly to a dynamic database, and to retrieve and manipulate data right on the desktop. In other words, it does more than simply link to another location - it allows the user to directly alter data. The Intel Pentium 4 processor executes XML instructions very effectively. For example, a 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 processor executes XML instructions 157 percent faster than a 500 MHz Pentium 3 processor.**

Peer-to-Peer networking is a technology that leading-edge businesses are already beginning to implement. It allows users to collaborate on documents and share resources directly with each other, without going through a server. Peer-to-Peer networking offers great promise for tapping the processing power and storage within desktop computers.

A Powerful Mobile Experience
Mobile computing is becoming increasingly pervasive in both business and consumer environments. The Mobile Intel® Pentium® III processor - M is the world's most advanced processor for notebooks today, delivering the highest performance and lowest power across all mobile PC segments. Mobile features in Windows XP allow roaming across different wireless LAN networks securely without having to reconfigure network connection settings and improve Suspend, Hibernate and Resume modes. These improvements help mobile PCs resume operation faster and help conserve battery power, which allows customers to be wireless for a longer period of time. Combined with Windows XP, the Mobile Intel Pentium III processor - M delivers performance to run demanding applications, enhances mobility by enabling thinner and lighter form factors and provides long-lasting battery life, seamless connectivity for wireless networks and a stable environment for corporate customers.

Intel, Pentium and Netburst are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

** Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance.