New Intel Chipset and Extreme Edition CPU Tested

Steve writes "Today sees the launch of both a new CPU and chipset from Intel. The CPU takes the form of a 3.46Ghz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, running at 1066FSB, and the chipset is the i925XE, the first Intel chipset to support this new FSB. HEXUS.net have a review of both. It looks like AMD still have the lead when it comes to performance, despite Intel's attempts to counter the Athlon 64 FX-55." Hack Jandy links to more reviews at AnandTech, HardOCP, and ExtremeTech.

Comments

Price / performance

[FiReaNGeL]

Honestly, who is buying these things? At a price of 999$ US (1000 units lot) and a marginal performance increase compared to other, far less costly solutions (3500+ AMD anyone?), I just don't see a market. Is it just for the performance crown, which they didn't even get to win this time around (or should I say, in the past 2-3 years)?No word on heat, nor power consumption.

AMD all the way. Intel is alive just because of Dell (among others) and a large reserve of cash. They cost more, do less, and heat your bedroom to boot. But it has 'Intel Inside', so I guess it must count for something...

Re:Price / performance

[PitaBred]

You do realize that a) you can disable all the 'bunch of crap' on the motherboard in the BIOS, and it won't take up any resources and b) much of the 'bunch of crap' on recent motherboards is actually rather good hardware? I used to be a snob like you, but then I realized that the onboard stuff really isn't always dog poo. There's a reason it's on there.

Another, older review of 925XE

[DrMrLordX]

Right here. Though, I must admit that I found some of the results to be a little wonky, along with the test bed. How'd they get a FX-51 running on a socket 939 board? Underlocked a FX-53?

Re:Another, older review of 925XE

[DrMrLordX]

I've heard this complaint many times, but I'm beginning to think that Tom's Hardware may simply feature insane reviewers and article authors. The results in the benchmark suite to which I linked are a bit odd(in particular are the rather stunning Doom III results which are wildly different than the ones features not long ago in Anandtech's Doom III CPU shootout), but what is most noteworthy is that the author is not at all enthusiastic about the 3.46 ghz P4EE in his conclusion. If he truly was biased towards Intel, or if everyone at Tom's was thusly biased, you'd think he'd try to spin the benchmark results as a major victory for the EE.

Ouch

[heli0]

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjgyLDY=

I think Intel knows that they are not going to get a lot of kind press today.

I think Intel has put this launch where they think it can do the least amount of damage by actually being noticed.

Intel's new Pentium 4 3.46 Extreme Edition processor touting its 1066MHz FSB and supporting 925XE chipset bring nothing new to the table in terms of real-world performance.

"Is this a paper launch?" Quite frankly, I don't know, and I don't see any real reason to care.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2261&p=17

So there you have it folks - the 1066MHz FSB does absolutely nothing for performance.

We can only wonder what Intel is thinking, releasing an entirely new chipset just four months after they released the original. Either the 1066MHz FSB is going to make its way to CPUs faster than we have anticipated, or Intel has just introduced the world's first useless FSB improvement for the next 9 months.

But given that Intel isn't planning on ramping clock speed up too high anytime soon, we'd say that the 1066MHz FSB is best left for late next year, when more useful implementations of it will appear.

Think of the drivers

[poptones]

I use an AMD box now - I have for some time. It's not even a powerhouse, it's an old XP1800. I've used this CPU on three different motherboards now, and so far I'm still looking for a reason to consider AMD when I finally replace it. I've had an S3 motherboard, a via motherboard, and TWO Nvidia motherboards. The closest I came to having decent chipset support was with the S3 and that's only because the guy who wrote the 3D drivers was able to basically con S3 out of the information he needed in order to do it (ie if you get a mainstream distro his drivers won't be in it due to potential legal issues).

The first Nvidia I bought to try out, then decided I wanted that great whajamacallit sound support so I spent weeks looking for a miniATX motherboard that had this feature. When I finally got it I discovered it has TERRIBLE sound - I mean atrocious, like the crap you would expect from a five year old emachine. Overtones, quantization noise - just horrid. And this is using THEIR drivers, which I cannot use along with THEIR 3D supporting video drivers because of random lockups the two together cause on my mandrake system.

If I get an intel system I at least get decent drivers. So here we have an intel motherboard that offers basically the same performance as the top of the line AMD, meaning "it can be done" and a lesser system (as I would buy) will also be proportionately less expensive. So for a premium of just a few bucks I can get similar performance AND I get open drivers that will work with my linux system?

Where do I sign up?

Re:Nobody ever got fired buying

[ewe2]

...but you'd be crazy to invest. Intel is in deep trouble unless Microsoft's next big thing convinces the Intel-lovers they need to upgrade. Microsoft is in deep trouble unless they convince the AMD-lovers they're not going to discriminate against them with said next big thing. R&D budgets are almost untenable. People are looking for ways to conserve their hardware, not madly buy more because Intel had a rollout.