Intel Launches Pentium Extreme Edition 955

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."

Comments

+1 grammar

[Anonymous Coward]

but overall it's given a run for its money by AMD's Athlon 64 X2 4800+ dual-core processor

Wow, you managed to use "it's" and "its" in the same sentence, and both correctly. A /. first!

is this a *real* launch?

[TubeSteak]

Is this a launch launch, or a paper launch?

I kinda got tired of reading about product launches that you couldn't go to a store and buy.

Run for its money..

[wfberg]

Pentium Processor Extreme 955

Price: $1,112.37 - $1,393.49

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4GHz, Toledo, Dual-Core, 2x1MB L2 Cache, Socket 939, 64-bit Processor

Price: $780.74 - $1,185.00

More run, less money, it would appear.

Dear Lord!

[Caspian]

...but overall it's given a run for its money...

Both homophones are used correctly! Who are you and what have you done with the Slashdot editors!?

Re:Dear Lord!

[TubeSteak]

The editors are on vacation during the holidays, they hired a bunch of monkeys, armed them with Open Office and gave them strict instructions to run the spell/grammar check before posting any articles.

The monkey's don't mind the extra work.

Re:Dear Lord!

[Anonymous Coward]

The monkey's don't mind the extra work.

On the bright side, no one will confuse you with a monkey.

At least, not today :)

But do games support them?

[Jacco de Leeuw]

What games actually take advantage of those dual cores?

Re:But do games support them?

[freidog]

The Nvidia version 80.0 and above drivers are multithreaded, so they take decent advantage of dual core / SMT chips.
A couple of games, I know Quake4 for one, have been benchmarked with the dual core offerings edging out the fastest single core products. How much of that is related to the multithreaded Nvidia drivers and how much is from threading in the games themsleves I don't know. (The effect is not on all games when running the det 80s, so I'd assume Q4 has at least some usefull (beyond file I/O and netcode) threading).

Re:I can't wait

[Elvis Parsley]

Any use of the word "extreme" with regards to a silicon chip is wrong.

That said, I will withdraw my statement if this processor parachutes off of cliffs.

Urine?

[dannyelfman]

I'm not so sure the market droids gave it much though when they came up with this critter's name. Ah, can't wait to see the zine articles: ``Intel's PEE will flush the competition''

What's next? Will AMD come out with Fast Asynchronous Redundant Technology?

Use words more precisely

[Dr. Spork]

When you say "given a run for its money" it suggests that the AMD chip's performance is about even with the EE Pentium. But this is wrong. The article itself concludes

"The Athon 64 X2 4800+ was the faster CPU in a majority of our real-world tests, and it consumed less power to boot."

But even that's a big understatement if you looked at the actual benchmark results. Neck and neck? Come on! Please, editors, accept submissions that aren't misleading.

Article has questionable conclusion

[SnakeJG]

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.

Re:Faster?

[pdbogen]

Just a short lesson in processor speed:
The throughput of a processor is related to the number of pipeline stages (think of a laundry room; you have three "stages"- washer, dryer, folding table. You can have three "loads" ("instructions") in the laundry room ("pipeline") at one time). When you shorten the clock time (i.e., increase the 'speed' to a higher number of Hz), you usually do this by adding more stages to the pipeline. This results in a longer pipeline (a given instruction takes more cycles to complete, AKA longer latency), but also gives you greater throughput (some instruction finishes every N seconds).
Recently, additions such as dual core changed all of this. Instead of fscking with the pipeline (in general), you just add a second pipeline. You double your throughput without affecting latency or timing. Other changes, such as reducing the number of pipeline stages while maintaining the same clock cycle, also result in an increase in speed. As well as greater on-die L1/L2 cache, since it significantly speeds up memory accesses.
This is why Intel is trying to get away from the association of GHz == performance, and why AMD a long time ago started using numbers (e.g., 4800) instead of clock speed.

So, the bottom line is that a 3.5GHz processor is not faster than a 3.1GHz processor or a 100Hz processor (well, probably the last one) because it has a higher clock speed; the clock speed is one symptom of some of the techniques used to increase performance. It's a lot like looking at a car and determining it's max speed by its MPG; sure, all other things equal (aerodynamics, etc.), a lower fuel efficiency means a higher powered engine means top speed- but this doesn't work if you're comparing a Motorcycle to a Hummer.