Intel's Latest: Faster, but Still Not the Champ

The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 processor is over 10 percent faster than Intel's previous fastest CPU.

Kirk Steers

The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 processor outpaced Intel's previous fastest CPU by more than 10 percent.

Intel is by no means conceding the high-end market to AMD's FX line (see "First Tests: FX-60 Powers Superfast PCs"), having recently launched its high-end dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition 955 CPU. No manufacturer was ready to ship a 955-based PC in time for this article, so we built a reference system featuring the processor and Intel's new 975X Express chip set.

Our test machine's WorldBench 5 score of 109 was more than 10 percent higher than that of any other dual-core Intel-based PC we've evaluated, but our reference system lagged behind the fastest FX-60-based machines in WorldBench 5 performance by a significant margin (23 percent).

More Cache, Faster Bus

Intel's new dual-core 3.46-GHz chip, which will sell for about $1000, carries 2MB of Level 2 cache per core (twice the amount the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 holds).

Other new features in the Extreme Edition 955 include a faster frontside bus (running at 1066 MHz) connecting the CPU with RAM, and Intel's Virtualization Technology, which allows a PC with the appropriate software to run multiple operating systems simultaneously without having to reboot.

Built by the Test Center

We equipped our reference desktop with an Intel D975XBS motherboard; 2GB of DDR2-887 RAM from Crucial Technologies; a single EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO graphics card with 256MB of memory; a couple of 7200-rpm, 160GB Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS hard drives striped in a RAID 0 array; and an Antec Turbo-Cool 510 ATX-PFC power supply.

How soon will systems be available commercially? Alienware and Gateway have already announced high-end models based on Intel's newest processor, and several other vendors likely will have joined them by the time you read this.