Pentium 4 3.46 Extreme Edition and 925XE: 1066MHz FSB Support is Here
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 31, 2004 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Gaming Performance
Doom 3
Our Doom 3 CPU Battlegrounds article already made it quite clear that Intel did not have what it takes to be the highest performer in Doom 3. The 3.46EE doesn't manage to help Intel as much as they need.
Counterstrike: Source
The next big game after Doom 3 is, of course, Half Life 2. And while the game is still not out, Valve's Visual Stress Test that comes with Counterstrike: Source gives us a good glimpse into future performance under Half Life 2.
Halo
Starwars Battlefront
Battlefield Vietnam
Battlefield Vietnam is similar to Starwars Battlefront not only in its game play but also in its performance; there's no real difference between any of the top performers here. Almost all of these CPUs end up being GPU limited at 1024x768.
Unreal Tournament 2004
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
An oldie but a goodie, Enemy Territory is still played quite a bit and makes for a great CPU test as today's GPUs can easily handle the rendering load of the Quake 3 based game.
The Sims 2
While a clear departure from our usual game tests, The Sims 2 is more popular than any of the other games we've featured here in certain crowds - it is effectively the Doom 3 of those who don't play prefer life-simulation to first person shooters. And interestingly enough, it makes for a very impressive CPU benchmark.
Far Cry
Warcraft III
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AlexWade - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
Now if only I can afford and find one ...MMORPGOD - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
IntelUser2000 - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
DDR2 is not a stupid move, its the speed they are at that's stupid. Remember DDR? They first ones ran at 200MHz, which were 50% faster than PC133 and still way faster than the enthusiast 166MHz SDRAMs. DDR's latency were higher, but since their clock is much higher, it wasn't a big problem as DDR2 vs DDR. However, PC1600 DDR still was not a big improvement over PC133, it was when PC2100 came that DDR started to shine.Another thing:
Quote:"With the original 925X chipset we were a bit unhappy to see that the Pentium 4's 800MHz FSB was paired with DDR2-533, creating one of those frustrating asynchronous situations."
I think 800MHz bus with DDR2-533 is actually VERY synchronous. First look it doesn't look like it. However since DDR2s latency is higher, it doesn't act like DDR533, it acts like DDR400. There was a Tomshardware review that was trying to predict the performance of 1066MHz bus.
First config was: 800MHz bus, DDR2-533
Second: 1066MHz bus, DDR2-533
Third: 1066MHz bus, DDR2-667
Guess which one had the biggest performance benefit? The third one, contrary to most people's belief. I think that tells that because of the DDR2's latency, you need DDR2-667 to perfectly match 1066MHz bus. Since Intel chose to stick with DDR2-533, they have created an asynchronous situation, making the performance not so much better. They should have went DDR2-667 with 1066MHz bus.
SLIM - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
One thing I didn't catch from anand's review is that the 3.46ee is rated at 110.7 watts according to [H]; just another reason to go AMD. Makes you wonder what the 3.73ee (which is supposed to launch this quarter) will have for a heatsink...Prometia for everyone:)
Tides - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
I remember reading a week or two ago about "AMD is going to have a tough time keeping up," from the lips of an Intel guy.Was this latest outing with the new P4EE's the proof? Perhaps I lack the foresight to understand what will happen in 6 months time, but in who's world is AMD going to have a hard time keeping up with? Cyrix's?
Tides - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
"ddr2 is a stupid move."Tides - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
not to mention, hi, ddr2 for is a stupid move. high latency, crap bandwidth, not just twice the price since you wouldn't have had to upgrade your ram otherwise if you already had solid ddr1.it reminds me of rambus. and beta max. and sony's discman. what else? ddr2 should have never come out imo. ddr3 is where it's at, hopefully amd will go straight to ddr3 and save it's customers and themselves the hastle of having to buy new ram, new mobos and so forth just to have to do it again with ddr3. i like faster everything as much as everyone else, but amd 64 proves ddr1 is alive and well, and ddr2 is what? exactly? perhaps in a year down the road, or two; it'll be worth something at the end of it's life cycle, just as ddr3 starts poking it's head about.
GhandiInstinct - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
Why don't they just screw any other core and focus on pumping out $1000 EEs? Everyones buying them, might as well. I really would like to know the stats for Intel's sales on their new cpus and chipsets, exact numbers.GhandiInstinct - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
#17 I was infering this world is off balance with that reality...Gnoad - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link
wow. $1000 a pop for a CPU that gets destroyed by processors that cost a quarter as much. Totally asinine.