The launch of Prescott back in January was widely expected to usher in a new wave of competition for AMD's nascent Athlon 64 much as Northwood had for the AthlonXP. Undoubtedly one of Intel's most-successful process transitions, Northwood was responsible for transforming enthusiast perceptions of the P4 from a slow also-ran to a star performer. Northwood's incredible scaling (from 2 to 3.06 GHz in 10 months, or 53% in less than a year) gave weight to Intel's claim that focusing on clock ramping over IPC (Instructions per Clockcycle) was an optimal way to increase performance.