The Pentium D brand refers to two series of desktop dual-core 64-bit x86-64 microprocessors with the NetBurst microarchitecture manufactured by Intel. Each CPU comprised two dies, each containing a single core, residing next to each other on a multi-chip module package. The brand's first processor, codenamed Smithfield, was released by Intel on May 25, 2005. Nine months later, Intel introduced its successor, codenamed Presler, but without offering significant upgrades in design, still resulting in relatively high power consumption. By 2004, the NetBurst processors reached a clock speed barrier at 3.8 GHz due to a thermal (and power) limit exemplified by the Presler's 130 watt thermal design power (a higher TDP requires additional cooling that can be prohibitively noisy or expensive). The future belonged to more energy efficient and slower clocked dual-core CPUs on a single die instead of two. The final shipment date of the dual die Presler chips was August 8, 2008, which marked the end of the Pentium D brand and also the NetBurst microarchitecture.

Pentium is a brand used for a series of x86-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel. In its most current form, a Pentium processor is a consumer-level product with a two-star rating, above the low-end Atom and Celeron products but below the faster Core i3, i5 and i7 lines as well as the high-end Xeon processors.

The name Pentium is originally derived from the Greek word pente (πέντε), meaning 'five' (as the series was Intel's 5th generation microarchitecture, the P5), and the Latin ending -ium. The current Pentium processors only share the name but are in fact based on the same processor chips that are used in the Intel Core but are typically used with a lower clock frequency, a partially disabled L3 cache and some of the advanced features such as Hyper-threading and Virtualization disabled.

During development Intel generally identifies processors with codenames, such as Prescott, Willamette, Coppermine, Katmai, Klamath or Deschutes. These usually become widely known, even after the processors are given official names on launch.