Preview of Intel's Dual-Core Extreme Edition 289
ThinSkin writes "Intel let ExtremeTech.com sneak behind the curtain of its anticipated Dual-Core Pentium Extreme Edition processor for a full performance preview with benchmarks. Bundled with essentially two Prescott cores on one die, the Extreme Edition 840 processor clocks at 3.2GHz and contains a beefed-up power management system to keep the CPUs running cool during use. Expect Intel's dual-core line to hit the streets sometime this quarter. No word on pricing yet." Update: 04/04 17:26 GMT by T : Timmus points out FiringSquad's preview, too, writing "The benchmark results are mixed, with a few applications taking advantage of the new CPU, and some that don't." And Kez writes in reference to this article to say: "Our article on HEXUS.net, covering the P4 EE in detail, states the price as £650 (that's what we're looking at in the UK anyway, not sure about the U.S.)."
Like, Extreme, to the, like, totally max! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yeah, by today's standards it's EXTREMELY slow!"
"Only dual core, ha ha ha ha hah!"
I guess they can't very well call it 840i, as they've already used that for a chipset, but maybe Intel should stick to names ending with -ium and -on instead of something which timelessly proclaims some chunk of doped silicon as superior.
Next up from Intel, the Ultra-Spifftronic-Wowee-Zappo Triple Core, with extra schmaltz!
Cool?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Extreme edition (Score:4, Insightful)
Ketchup on their face (Score:3, Insightful)
Gamers won't be interested (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, right.... (Score:4, Insightful)
So in other words... unless you have extreme cooling this thing will never run at full speed for long. Because when it does, it will quickly heat up and this power management will throttle the clock speed and core voltage. Apps may start up a little faster, but long-term consumers of CPU cycles (e.g media encoding, some games, etc) won't see much improvement. But I'm sure lots of clueless consumers will go for this new eXtreme CPU. Can't wait to see what bullshit analogy Intel will come up with for the TV ads...
Re:Like, Extreme, to the, like, totally max! (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel bad for the engineers who come up with these designs which are then crapped on by their marketting department.
Re:Like, Extreme, to the, like, totally max! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ketchup (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about (Score:2, Insightful)
I would also like to say that I don't know anything about AMD's offering of dual-core, so I can't comment on why their way is better. I'm sure it is, because AMD's way is always better, but I don't actually have proof of that.
That comment pretty much says it all about your experience in this field.
My only complaint with the article.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen, for office productivity and "how fast can I open spreadsheets", nobody SHOULD need more than one CPU.
The rendering tests were a little disappointing (I seem to recall a bigger gap in the AMD benchmarks), but really the point of dual CPU's is, as anyone who has used one knows, responsiveness.
Yeah rendering times dropping to 60% of normal is nice, but let me tell you, where a normal single CPU system would sit there gurgling and choking on its own vomit because some dirty little application decides it MUST use up all the CPU time, dual CPU systems just go "eh, whatever, hes being a jerk, I can help you over here."
It is SO nice to use a dual CPU system in daily routine useage (which for me is QUITE varied) just for the increase in responsiveness alone.
Re:Ketchup on their face (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for naming the instruction sets that I mentioned. I could not remember the name. I believe that Intel spent enough money in the AMD store that AMD granted them the rights to name the instruction sets anyway they liked, as long as they did not change the functionality. That has to rub the Intel people the wrong way.
Re:Ketchup on their face (Score:3, Insightful)
The real story here is what caused Intel to agree to a license agreement to begin with. They actually were caught with their pants down on this one. They had reverse engineered everything and attempted to move forward with their reverse engineered plans and AMD blew the whistle. Intel admitted their deed, to save on litigation that was obviously not in Intel's favor (based on their forced agreements with AMD in the past).
No AMD definately did this in a seperate agreement and were very happy to make it public. They just wanted the publicity out of Intel bringing up the rear for a change.
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How about (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ketchup (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple has liquid-cooled options (dual 2.5ghz), Dell does not (yes, custom PCs exist). When will we start seeing major PC names going liquid?