The Pentium D: Intel's Dual Core Silver Bullet Previewed

By Patrick Schmid
published

Optional Dual Graphics

Intel repeatedly mentioned dual graphics capabilities at the Developer Forum this spring, but did not provide details. The D955XKB Desktop Board is ready for a second x16 slot, but it wasn't installed. With NVIDIA pushing SLI and ATI developing AMR, Intel seems to realize the importance of dual graphics support at the high end.

550 W Enermax Power Supply

At 550 Watts, the power supply should be strong enough for our test purposes.

Micron PC2-5300 At CL5

Intel is using CL5 memory; it should operate at a CAS latency of four clock cycles too, though this has not been validated. As the Intel specification does not provide for faster timings, we left the CL5 setting unchanged this time.

Patrick Schmid
2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • DaveF1953
    How much can the Extreme Edition be had for now? $40? Sounds like a deal to me. Although, older, hotter, and slower in the long run. Best bet now. No?
    Reply
  • wild9
    I'd just go AMD or Core 2, the former having a much lower power draw and great overclocking potential than what you have here. My relative used to run Intel Extreme Editions like this, and the power draw was immense, he had to use water cooling. In the end he ditched it and got AMD. Not trying to say one is better than the other all the time (ie for media encoding the Intel was great), just some ideas to consider. Cheap dual-core AMD's based on AM2 are hard to beat at the moment.
    Reply