After a period of inactivity, market leaders Intel and AMD have announced new processors with larger cache sizes and marginally improved clock speed, signalling the next iteration of the perennial battle for clock speed and performance.

Intel's Prescott processor, slated for release on 2 February, won't be significantly faster than the current Northword line clock-for-clock, but will apparently scale 'upwards of 5Ghz'. It will be interesting to see how Intel copes with the transition to their 90 micron fabrication process, a move which other manufacturers (such as nVidia) have found difficult. Prescott will initially debut at 3.4Ghz, possibly enough to regain the performance crown from AMD's latest 64-bit processor.

On the AMD front, the Athlon64 3400+ looks capable of out-performing Intel's top consumer-level CPU, the 3.2Ghz Pentium 4. Running at a clock speed of just 2.2Ghz, the oddly-titled 3400+ spells doom for the much higher priced Athlon FX and Intel P4 EE, which offer only marginally better performance at prices just shy of USD $1000.

Perhaps more interesting is AMD's quiet release of the Athlon64 3000+. Though not their flagship processor, this seems to represent the best compromise between performance and price. Surprisingly, the CPU still manages to consistently outperform all but the top-of-the-line Intel processors, despite having a cut-back L2 cache.

Meanwhile, this author reclines in front of his 800Mhz 'dinosaur' and agonises over when, if ever, the long-awaited upgrade shall take place.