Intel Corp. demonstrated a personal computer equipped with a Pentium 4 microprocessor running at 3GHz on April 17 at the Intel Developer Forum 2002 Spring Japan held in Chiba.

William Siu, vice president and general manager of Intel’s desktop platform group, made the demonstration in his keynote lecture. The current maximum operating frequency of Pentium 4 is 2.4GHz. Siu proved the current heat dissipation technology can handle a frequency of up to 3GHz.

The prototype PC equipped with a 3 GHz chip was made by the Legend Group of China. Intel often uses a prototype with a 3GHz Pentium 4 chip made by the Chinese group for demonstrations.

In the lecture, Siu stressed that Intel and the Legend Group are not in a special relationship.

Intel is proposing form-factor programs on the main body of the next-generation desktop PCs. The programs include the Tidewater Program on the smaller-sized main body with a heat dissipation design and the Big Water Program on the main body adopting the next-generation I/O technology called 3GIO. Intel appears to be positioning the Legend Group’s machine as a model based on specifications for the Tidewater Program.

It is likely that Chinese PC makers will enter the small-sized desktop PC market, a traditional strength of Japanese PC makers.