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

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Intel Processors (Socket 775)
FSB800 (Dual DDR2-667) Pentium EE 840 (3200 MHz Dual 12KµOps+16/1024 kB)Pentium D 840 (3200 MHz Dual 12KµOps+16/1024 kB)
FSB800 (Dual DDR2-533) Pentium 4 660 Prescott (3600 MHz 12KµOps+16/2048 kB)Pentium 4 570 Prescott (3800 MHz 12KµOps+16/1024 kB)
Memory
DDR2-667 2 x 512 MB - DDR2-667 (333 MHz)Micron MT8HTF646AY-667A3 200506 BZACS610011RX8 PC2-5300U-555-11-D0DDR2-667 (CL 5.0-5-5-15)DDR2-533 (CL 4.0-4-4-13)
Intel Motherboards
Intel 955X Intel D955XBK
Common Hardware
Graphics Card (PCIe) NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT (Reference board)GPU: NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT (350 MHz)Memory: 256 MB DDR-SDRAM (500 MHz)
Hard Drive Hitachi Deskstar HDS722516VLSA802x 160 GB / 8 MB Cache / 7200 rpm
Network-Card Intel 100/1000 Mbit PCIe
DVD-ROM Gigabyte GO-D1600C (16x)
Sound Card Terratec Aureon 7.1 Space96.00 kHz sample rate
Software
Intel Chipset V 7.0.0.1014 BETA
LAN-Treiber: V 7.0.1.0
VGA-Driver: Nvidia 71.84
DirectX Version: 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
OS Windows XP, Build 2600 SP2
Patrick Schmid
Patrick Schmid
Editor-in-Chief (2005-2006)

Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.

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