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Intel 3.40EE & 3.60E - LGA Arrives
MBR writes "MBReview has taken a quick look at Intel's
new high-end LGA775 processors, the 3.40GHz Extreme Edition, and the 3.60GHz
'E,' now known as the 560. They've covered some of the questions about pin
frailty of the new LGA socket, as well as cooling issues that might arise
from these new processors." ("LGA" stands for Land Grid Array, which moves pins from the processor to the socket it sits in.) Update: 06/19 20:50 GMT by T :
Reader Chi-Energy points out that besides the new processor packaging, Intel has also just released its i925X and i915 chipsets, PCI Express and DDR2 DRAM for the desktop, and links to this review showcase with benchmarks at HotHardware.
I'm not as worried about frail pins as I am about the amount of heat these things push out, the size of the new heatsink/fan assemblies, and the noise they put out. I thought Socket 478 processors were hot, but LGA Prescott processors run even hotter, which makes me think Intel has a point when it says we should switch away from the ATX case factor and adopt BTX for Intel chips..
That said, are the Extreme Edition processors still selling for $900 USD a pop? Hardly seems worth the extra money for gaming, although a server that wants to survive Slashdottings could probably use one...
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Apparently the BTX form factor (of which LGA is a part) has been heavily resisted by many Taiwanese chassis, mainboard and heatsink manufacturers.
But what's new here? Word has it that this time round, the Taiwanese heastink, mainboard and PSU manufacturers - and quite a lot of them it would seem - are being rather less than enthusiastic or co-operative, about the sweeping changes and support that Intel is asking, nay demanding, of them.
I'd be interested to see if Intel can actually strong-arm them into it
Playing poker with a joker and some Uno cards
Yeah..
nothing like a graph that makes a 10% difference look like a 90% gap.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
According to Sandpile.org, the 3.4GHz Pentium IV Prescott can use up to 127W, and has a typical power usage of 103W (when browsing the web or reading email).
In my opinion, it is rediculous for a single processor to single-handedly run up your power bill. That's like having two light bulbs on 24/7 (assuming you keep your computer on), not to mention the power needed to cool your PC, let alone your house's air conditioner.
I would take a VIA chip for low-performance stuff, and an Athlon64 for performance computing. support 64-bit software including 64-bit Linux distributions, are faster than Intel's best even running 32-bit software, and they have a maximum power usage of 89W. Because of Cool'n'Quiet mode, they spend most of the time running at 800MHz consuming about 30-35W and generally not requiring a loud and abnoxious cooling fan.
It is actually impressive what the chips can do at 800MHz. You can play a full screen DVD at 1400x1050, and the CPU usage tops out at about 5% (at 800MHz). If, of course, you run something that requires more power, like a video game or a compiler, the processor instantly switches to full speed. Handy, that.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
One of the most useful things about the 925 chipset, IMHO, is the interesting possibilities it offers for SATA RAID. Say you want the performance capabilities of RAID 0, but at the same time, you need the redundancy for RAID 1. let's also say that you can only afford two SATA drives.
the intel 925 chipset has native support for a mixed raid, where you can create a raid 0 partiiton across two hard drives, using only part of the hdd capacity on each drive for the raid 0 partition. the rest of the unpartitioned space can be set aside as a raid 1 partition. that way you can install the OS and other non-critical files tha can be lost to the raid 0 partition and get the performance, but if one of the drives fail, you can store your important stuff on the raid 1 partition. I'm trying to find a controller card that will do this functionality, but I can't find anyone that claims to explicitly support it. the only reason I know about the 925 features is I got a chance to play with a pre-production board. definitely a cool feature.