Powerleap to offer Pentium 4 hyperthreading adaptors

ONE OF THE FIRST companies to take advantage of the state of the pins on Intel Pentium 4s will be Powerleap, which is set to offer an adaptor very soon, avoiding the need to upgrade your motherboard. Last week, we reported that a simple modification to one pin will allow machines to recognise hyperthreading, which currently – on desktop machines at least – is only available for 3.06GHz Pentium 4s.

Powerleap will release the adaptor which requires only a simple change to recognise hyperthreading P4s and already has a prototype up and running, according to documents seen by the INQUIRER.

The adaptor promises to avoid buying a special motherboard to recognise Pentium 4 chips. As we previously reported, Intel intends to offer Pentium 4s at 2.4GHz and above that support hyperthreading in the first half of this year.

But if the modification becomes widespread, we wouldn't be surprised if Intel does further modifications to maintain its marchitecture lead on hyperthreading – a key element of its push on Pentium 4s in 2003.

View: Intel hyperthreading technology a suitable case for modification.