Meanwhile, Prescott-successor Tejas currently slated for Q2 2004 launch

Earlier news reports have suggested that Intel will launch their new Prescott processor at 3.40GHz in the fourth quarter of this year. The Inquirer writes that over the course of the the first half of next year, the CPU will eventually be available at 3.20, 3.40, 3.60, 3.0 and 2.80GHz speed steps in order to expand and plug up any holes in the family.

A 3.80GHz Prescott is planned for the second quarter of 2004, by which time Intel's new Tejas core processor will be ready to step up to the batting plate (read more about the Tejas here). Eventually the Prescott will cap at somewhere near 4GHz, and then it will the Tejas' turn to expand.

All of the Prescott processors will feature 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache, and of course Hyper-Threading support. However, the article also suggests that initial Prescott CPUs may not be 90 nanometer chips, though it's not clear whether this is limited to the 3.40GHz launch processor, or any of the others slated for early next year.

As reported earlier, Intel will also release Prescott Celerons at 2.80 and 3.06GHz varieties (news), with 533MHz FSB and 256K L2 cache.