Pentium EE 965 3.73GHz

[Zap]

Reviewed at Tom's Hardware

Conclusion:

The Pentium Extreme Edition 965 does its job by keeping Intel in the news and by bridging the time until the first Conroe-based Core Duo E6000 (or E8000 Extreme Edition) processors become available. But at the end of the day, it is just another NetBurst processor that is inferior compared to the dual-core Athlons.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Yawns are contagious.

 

[Markfw]

Same old crap... Lets see the fanboys spin this one.

 

[RichUK]

I think THG got it quite right with this statement, and IMO it is nothing more.

The Pentium Extreme Edition 965 does its job by keeping Intel in the news and by bridging the time until the first Conroe-based Core Duo E6000 (or E8000 Extreme Edition) processors become available

Other than that its absolutely awful. I would even go as far to say it is day light robbery given the high price for an obviously inferior product.

 

[BrownTown]

Intel has to release something before Conroe comes out, this has been on the roadmaps for months along with the 960, its not like AMD is gonna have anything better than the FX60 untill June, so at lest they close the gap a little. Then get raped again in June, but come back in July with Conroe.

EDIT: actually after looking at the benchmarks it aint doin too bad. It keeps up with the FX60 at stock, and when both are overclocked in most apps. The difference is never very big for either processor, so both would work fine for whatever you want. However, in my mind AMD still wins due to runnign cooler, but the processing power of the CPU is not the crap most AMD fans will try to make it out to be. Also, gotta congradulate Intel on getting 533 more mhz out of the 65nm process over the Smithfield core. Thats 17%, and could likely be more if it werent using the firebreather netburst architecture.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Same old crap... Lets see the fanboys spin this one.

Nice to see your maturity coming through there Mark :roll:

Seriously, i think THG hit the nail on the head, all this chip does is keep intel in the news

The cost/performance ratio makes me feel nauseous...

 

[jiffylube1024]

I think Mark's sentiments are pretty accurate. Considering these EE chips cost around $1000 each, this really doesn't make any difference whatsoever in the grand scheme of things...

 

[BrownTown]

i can't really see how you can say that this processor has a crappy price/performance ration when its pretty much the same as the FX60.

Also, look at the power consumption numbers, seems like C1 stepping actually does help.

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, maybe there is a hint of C1 stepping power reduction comparing the 955 to the 965.

The 965 at 4ghz appears to be 21 watts lower than the 955 at stock.

 

[AkumaX]

If anything, it would make this their new flagship CPU, which would in turn lower the prices of the previous CPUs in their position, which would...

oh wait, nevermind. it still doesn't mean anything...

 

[BrownTown]

nah, your right, this will come in at the top end along with the 960 and all the other preslers drop a price range, and the 920 gets cut. So in April we have some cheap Preslers, and then when Conroe comes out they get crazy cheap.

 

[n7]

The 700W Fortron i ordered just might be able to power this new Netburst atrocity

 

[BrownTown]

it uses less power then the highest clocked single core 90nm processors, so why would you need a huge power supply to use it?

XbitLabs just released another review. So pretty much the 965 is as good or better than the FX60 in everything but games, but nobody in these forums cares about anything but games so everyone will still think its a piece of crap.

 

[n7]

I'm being sarcastic.

That being said, look at the temps in that Xbit review. Holy crap...

I have nothing against Intel, excepting every single Netburst CPU they've produced after Prescott.

I'll very likely be jumping ship when Conroe comes out.

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
it uses less power then the highest clocked single core 90nm processors, so why would you need a huge power supply to use it?

XbitLabs just released another review. So pretty much the 965 is as good or better than the FX60 in everything but games, but nobody in these forums cares about anything but games so everyone will still think its a piece of crap.

heh, not that much of a gamer, as long as it can run WoW, i'd be fine

it did intrigue me to see how the new multi-threaded divx6 codec took advantage of 4 threads. we need more multi-threaded (useful!) apps! then we can justify quad-core!

 

[BrownTown]

those temps are fine, i know anyone with an AMD CPU might freak out over them, but a processor can work just fine at that temp. IF everything works then I don't really see any reason to care about temperature.

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
nah, your right, this will come in at the top end along with the 960 and all the other preslers drop a price range, and the 920 gets cut. So in April we have some cheap Preslers, and then when Conroe comes out they get crazy cheap.

yeah, exactly, we'll get price cuts on today's intel cpus = cheap preslers... but you know that won't matter to the majority of the AT community

what we need are Conroe and AM2 NOW so we can see who's got the better price/performance ratio, otherwise we can just speculate all we want...

 

[Munky]

Another review from Techreport

It's not even close to the FX60 in most benches, and not just games. In video encoding, 3d rendering, image processing, multi-tasking, you name it... it consistently loses not only to the FX60, but also to the x2 4800. Another big yawn for the latest netburst abomination...

 

[coldpower27]

It's pretty nice here in Anandtech though. It's fairly competitive. It's not too far behind even in gaming.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
i can't really see how you can say that this processor has a crappy price/performance ration when its pretty much the same as the FX60.

Also, look at the power consumption numbers, seems like C1 stepping actually does help.

Because the FX-60 is a total waste of money as well! Both chips have terrible price/performance!

 

[BrownTown]

I would like to have seen some benchmarks with HT disabled, the replay bug really kills performance when HT is used in some apps, so it might help some of the programs which arent very multithreaded. Also, i agree with TRs conclusion, this processor isn't nearly as impressive in its own right as it is in proving the advantage of 65nm process. Putting up much higher clocks and lower power consumption than the 90nm dual cores while having twice the cache (not that cache draws much power, but still a factor). When Conroe comes out Intels 65nm process will let them clock it higher, and give it the huge 4MB cache while still being a smaller die size than AMDs processors. So it seems very likely that Intel would win performance/price across the board on AMD till they get out 65nm.

 

[Zebo]

As noted in xbit recent review - Power numbers look a lot better
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/22/pentium_extreme_edition_965/page21.html

Also like Xbit - It's really too bad toms does'nt ahve a X2 @ 3 or 3.2 Ghz in there.. sorta unfair and useless just to show one chip OC. Either do both or none.

But I think people may get the hint either way when a stock X2 is still able to put the screws to intel OCed?

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Yawns are contagious.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
I would like to have seen some benchmarks with HT disabled, the replay bug really kills performance when HT is used in some apps, so it might help some of the programs which arent very multithreaded. Also, i agree with TRs conclusion, this processor isn't nearly as impressive in its own right as it is in proving the advantage of 65nm process. Putting up much higher clocks and lower power consumption than the 90nm dual cores while having twice the cache (not that cache draws much power, but still a factor). When Conroe comes out Intels 65nm process will let them clock it higher, and give it the huge 4MB cache while still being a smaller die size than AMDs processors. So it seems very likely that Intel would win performance/price across the board on AMD till they get out 65nm.

If conroe will clock so high and be so effceint why is only 2.66Ghz it's top rated and they go way down to 1.86 from there?


I don't know maybe 2.66 is enough to beat 2.8 X2 like intel claims and that's all they want, to beat, not to cream. Maybe they really do have this 3.3Ghz XE conroe rumored. Or maybe the conroe simply won't ramp very well due to short pipeline. Or maybe it starts leaking like crazy after 2.66 sucking loads of power!

Wait and see.

 

[BrownTown]

There ahve been 3.3G conroes shown working by Intel behind clsoed doors, plus at IDF they showed a 3G woodcrest (exact same as Conroe) running. Also, 3G woodcrest launch along with the 2.66G Conroes, and it is widely believed that Conroe will get the 2.93G part it Q4 along with a 3.3G XE. Also, clearly at a 513$ price point the 2.66G Conroe is not expected to hold the flagship position for long. It is considerably more likely that Intel is launching at that speed becasue it can afford to wait and push out higher clocked Conroe latter, not because it cant get better speed.