Ultra-rare unreleased Pentium 4 with 4.0 GHz clock speed discovered — CPU-Z confirms it is an Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 980

An ultra-rare Intel Pentium 4 engineering sample with a 4.0 GHz clock speed, likely an Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 980, has been discovered by a Reddit user. The chip's authenticity was confirmed using CPU-Z. This particular chip is believed to be a loaner chip given to an employee, making it even rarer than typical engineering samples. The processor belongs to the final days of the Pentium 4 era, a time when Intel was transitioning to the Core 2 lineup. Intel's strategic shift towards performance-per-watt and the Core microarchitecture likely led to the shelving of this high-clock-speed Pentium 4 chip.