Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.46 GHz, FSB1066
The new processor is still based on the 130 nm Gallatin core. Unlike the Northwood core used for the Pentium 4 on Socket 478, Gallatin comes with a 512 kB L2 cache and an additional 2 MB L3 cache. In contrast to L1 and L2 caches of all Pentium 4s, the Extreme Edition's third cache layer works exclusively, which means that high-level cache contents are not replicated into the lower level (e.g. L2 to L3).
Performance-wise, the clock speed increase from 3.40 to 3.46 GHz barely makes any difference. And with the DDR2 memory not being accelerated, the only notable asset of this processor is the faster Front Side Bus speed.
Of course, electrical and thermal specifications have not changed much. The nominal voltage is 1.525 to 1.600 V, while the TDP (Thermal Design Power) moves from 109.6 to 110.7 W at a Tcase maximum of 66°C. The new top model runs considerably cooler than the Pentium 4 Processor 560 at 3.6 GHz.
At FSB800, Asus allows for three different memory modes, up to DDR2-600...
... while the setting offering the best performance will be FSB1066 and DDR2-711. Be sure you get high-quality DDR2-667 DIMMs before doing this.
