CNET editors' take
- Reviewed on: 12/27/2005
Today, Intel announced its new Pentium Processor 955 Extreme Edition processor, formerly code-named Presler. This chip, which goes on sale on January 16, is the first from Intel's second generation of dual-core consumer desktop CPUs, and it features a smaller physical size, a different L2 cache structure, and a faster 1,066MHz frontside bus. The new processor also requires the new Intel 975X Express motherboard chipset, which Intel also announced today.
Upside: With the reduced size, thanks to a 65-nanometer manufacturing process, this second-generation dual-core chip will hopefully make cooling and noise reduction easier for system builders. (The last generation of Intel chips was manufactured using a 90-nanometer process.) Aside from supporting the Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 955 processor, the 975X Express chipset is exciting because it's Intel's first with support for two PCI Express graphics card slots. It's great for gamers because it means they can double up on graphics cards.
The Extreme Edition 955 chip has a clock speed of 3.46GHz per physical core, up from 3.2GHz on the Extreme Edition 840. The new chip also has a new L2 cache design. Rather than sharing a single L2 cluster, each core now has its own dedicated 2MB chunk, which should improve overall performance.
Our early testing shows some performance gains, too. On our SysMark 2004 Internet-content-creation test and on our video-encoding and image-editing tests, the Extreme Edition 955 chip posted the fastest times we've seen from a single chip so far. Also of particular interest is the DivX 6.1 encoding test, which showcases the newly released video software coded specifically to take advantage of multicore processors. On that test, Intel's new chip was 10 percent faster than AMD's Athlon 64 X2 4800+ chip. There's more to the story with that application, however.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 |
BAPCo SysMark 2004 rating | |
BAPCo SysMark 2004 Internet-content-creation rating | |
BAPCo SysMark 2004 office-productivity rating |
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
|
Multitasking--McAfee VirusScan and DivX 6.1 encoding | |
DivX 6.1 encoding |
Downside: Although it shows some promise, we had hoped to see more initial performance gains from the Extreme Edition 955 chip. It certainly exhibits some improvement compared to Intel's older Pentium D dual-core chips, but AMD's Athlon 64 X2 CPUs still hold a clear advantage over all of Intel's chips--young and old, alike--on our gaming and MP3-encoding benchmarks. We were also surprised by the results of our multitasking test. We ran a McAfee virus scan concurrently with a DivX 6.1 video encode, and AMD beat Intel's new chip by 4 percent. Intel's counter is that its dual-core chips will shine with heavier workloads. And while it's perhaps not uncommon for your PC to have five or six major applications open at one time, rarely will they all perform different tasks simultaneously.
Regardless of workload, the price differential is still impossible to ignore. The Extreme Edition 955 will cost $1,000 when it hits the stores. That's about $200 more than the older and, in some cases, faster AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ chip.
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Where to buy
Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955:
$275.00
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$275.00 | Yes |
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