The Seventh Extreme Edition Rolls Out
The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 is the seventh model of what has thus far been a ridiculously-priced, rigorously hyped enthusiast class processor family. This alleged Über-Pentium was introduced roughly two years ago by simply deploying an existing server/workstation class processor design into the highest end desktop space. Its main disadvantage obviously is the poor price/performance ratio: While it has always been the latest and greatest pick of Intel's processor portfolio, this does not necessarily reflect in noticeable performance benefits when compared to ordinary Pentium models.
Back in 2003, the Extreme Edition was a single-core Pentium 4 or Xeon derivative with large caches and high clock speeds. Today, the brand has been simplified and is called Pentium Extreme Edition only (without the 4), but all of these have two processor cores and support for Intel's Hyper Threading technology. Hyper Threading (HT) allows for a better utilization of the core's deep pipeline by appearing as two processors to the operating system. As a result, a dual core Extreme Edition processor with HT will offer four logical cores to the operating system.
| Extreme Edition for Socket 775 | Core | Process |
|---|---|---|
| Pentium EE 955 3.46 GHz | Presler | 65 nm |
| Pentium EE 840 3.20 GHz | Smithfield | 90 nm |
| Pentium 4 EE 3.72 GHz | Prescott 2M | 90 nm |
| Pentium 4 EE 3.46 GHz | Gallatin | 130 nm |
| Pentium 4 EE 3.40 GHz | Gallatin | 130 nm |
| Extreme Edition for Socket 478 | Core | Process |
| Pentium 4 EE 3.40 GHz | Gallatin | 130 nm |
| Pentium 4 EE 3.20 GHz | Prestonia | 130 nm |
While the first table is a simple overview of the existing Extreme Editions only, here is a list of features that were added to the Extreme Edition when compared to the regular Pentium models:
| Extreme Edition Socket 775 Features | |
|---|---|
| EE 955 (3.46 GHz) | FSB1066, Hyper Threading, Virtualization Technology |
| EE 840 (3.20 GHz) | Hyper Threading |
| EE 3.72 GHz | FSB1066 |
| EE 3.46 GHz | FSB1066, 512 kB L2 & 2 MB L3 cache |
| EE 3.40 GHz | 512 kB L2 & 2 MB L3 cache |
| Extreme Edition Socket 478 Features | |
| EE 3.40 GHz | 512 kB L2 & 2 MB L3 cache |
| EE 3.20 GHz | 512 kB L2 & 2 MB L3 cache |
