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Intel Launches Pentium Extreme Edition 955

Posted by Zonk on from the end-of-the-year-chip dept.

BSG Man writes "Intel's 3.46 GHz Pentium Extreme Edition 955 dual-core processor launches today, and HotHardware has a full review with benchmarks on Intel's new i975X Express based D975XBX motherboard. This processor is based on Intel's 65nm (or .065 micron) Presler core with 2MB of full speed, on-die L2 cache dedicated to each core, for a whopping 4MB of total L2 cache. As expected, the new Pentium Extreme Edition 955 scores well in encoding, desktop business and a few professional rendering tests but overall it's given a run for its money by AMD's Athlon 64 X2 4800+ dual-core processor, especially in gaming scenarios."

7 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. But do games support them? by Jacco+de+Leeuw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What games actually take advantage of those dual cores?

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  2. Hope Dell Reads This Article by gasmonso · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With AMD, continuously beating Intel in both price and performance, it just pisses me off to see them exclusively sell Intel processors. Even in their highend gaming rigs, they use the Extreme Edition with no option of getting an AMD processor. That's just pathetic. Think of how cheap their boxes could be if they didn't force you top buy Intel and Windows.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/
  3. Faster? by tsa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What I find interesting is: a few years ago the fastest processor you could buy ran at about 3.1 GHz or so. Now it's around 3.5 GHz. Ten years ago, the processing speed was doubled every few years. What is keeping the speed around 3.5 GHz? Is it the processor itself, or the electronics around it that can't be made faster? Or is there no demand for faster processors? (I can hardly imagine that!)

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    1. Re:Faster? by The+Mayor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, Moore's Law relates to the number of transistors per unit area, not processing power or clock speed. The corrolary to Moore's Law indicates that the price per transistor halves every 18 months. Nothing is ever said about clock speed or processing power. Check this link for the actual wording. By the way, Moore's Law still seems to be holding, and with the proliferation of multi-core computing and whatnot, I expect Moore's Law will hold for a while to come. The difference now is that we will start to make better use of multiple layers on a single piece of silicon, instead of working towards smaller transistors. We are, indeed, starting to bump up against the laws of physics with the size of transistors, but we're only starting to explore the benefits of creative packaging.

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  4. Article has questionable conclusion by SnakeJG · · Score: 4, Interesting
    From the article's conclusion:
    Benchmark Summary: The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 processor performed well overall throughout our entire battery of benchmarks. Due to the processor's relatively high-clock speed, dual execution cores, HT technology and 1066MHz bus, the synthetic benchmarks, 3D rendering tests , and audio encoding tests ran best on the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 / D975XBX platform. However, most of the gaming tests, content creation and desktop applications, and the video encoding tests ran best on the AMD Athlon 64 X2 / NF4 SLIX16 combo.
    However, if you look at the actual 3d rendering tests they do (Kribibench v1.1), the AMD processor wins one test by ~20% and loses one by ~5%. Although the second test was a more 'difficult' test, it seems quite a jump to say that the Intel chip performs better at 3D rendering.
  5. Re:Demand, yes. by ghjm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yep.

    These days, when I can't avoid being dragged into someone's office to "just have a look," their performance problems are *always* spyware or installer-cruft. Invariably, the computer they have is more than fast enough to suit their needs.

    So they are presented with a choice: Have someone spend two or three hours at $100+/hr reinstalling Windows and/or cleaing crap off their machine, or wander down to the local megastore and buy the cheapest machine they have, which is usually $250 and ten times faster then they need (as opposed to the "junk" machine, which is only three times faster).

    This seems bubble-like to me. But what do I know, I'm only halfway through my MBA. They haven't got to the part about selling people crap they don't need yet.

    -Graham

  6. two words by tomstdenis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    heat dissipation.

    Well that and the ALU is really crap still. Sure it does well at bulk data movement tasks but compiling/crypto it's a useless core.

    That and for the love of god ... "diminishing returns" does that mean anything to them? Why not a 32MB cache!!! 128MB!!! a gig!!!

    Tom

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