Intel Pentium 4-M 1.90 socket: Socket 478

What the Pentium 4-M 1.90 is

The Intel Pentium 4-M 1.90 is a 1900 MHz single-core mobile processor from June 2002. It runs one NetBurst Northwood core at 1900 MHz with no Hyper-Threading, so 1 core gives 1 thread. Cache is 512 KB of L2 on a 130 nm process. Power is rated at 32 W in a Socket 478 package with a 400 MT/s front side bus and a 19x multiplier.

The 1.90 P4-M moves the line from 30 W to 32 W with higher clocks and the same cache. Intel placed it in June 2002 with the 2.00 P4-M part. The chip supports MMX, SSE and SSE2 with SpeedStep. Mobile Celeron 1.90? No Celeron at the same 1.9 GHz exists with 256 KB as a value alternative, so cache separates the lines at identical frequency.

Small power lift with rising clocks marks late P4-M maturity. The move from 30 W to 32 W needs only a small cooler step. That is why boards qualified for slower P4-M parts normally accept the 1.90.

Socket and motherboard compatibility

The Pentium 4-M 1.90 fits Socket 478 notebooks with P4-M support. It needs a notebook Socket 478 board. The Socket vs chipset: what decides whether a CPU works guide covers pairing rules.

Mainstream notebooks are the natural match. Maker lists decide fit.

Memory, PCIe and cooling

Memory is DDR through the board chipset with notebook slots. The CPU has no controller.

A 400 MT/s bus ties the CPU to the chipset, while graphics hangs off the chipset. No PCIe lanes originate on the die. Cooling is the notebook heat pipe for 32 W.

Upgrade paths

On Socket 478 the steps are P4-M 2.00 and 2.20 parts. Pentium M Banias parts on Socket 479 offer lower power paths. The 1.90 removes with the socket mechanism, so swaps need no solder work.