Intel's Pentium Extreme Edition 955: 65nm, 4 threads and 376M transistors
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 30, 2005 11:36 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Presler vs. Smithfield - A Brief Look
Other than the larger L2 cache, Presler as incorporated in the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 provides us with two more enhancements over Smithfield: 1066MHz FSB support and a higher clock speed (3.46GHz).
We wanted to isolate the performance improvement due to the larger L2 cache aside from the other improvements to Presler, so we underclocked our sample and its FSB, and compared it to a Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz).
Looking at a small subset of our tests, we can get a feel for where you can expect the largest performance gains due simply to the increase in L2 cache size. Remember that since L2 access latency on Smithfield was already at 27 cycles, Presler's cache isn't any slower, so what we end up measuring is how large of an impact a 2MB cache has in some of our benchmarks.
Under Business Winstone 2004, we see a boost of just under 3%, thanks to the larger cache size. We have seen the biggest improvements in Winstone, thanks to lower latency caches and higher clock speeds, so it's not too much of a surprise to see a minimal impact here. Content Creation Winstone 2004 shows no real performance impact either.
Our 3D rendering, video encoding and audio encoding tests basically all agree with the earlier results - the added cache doesn't really improve performance here, but that's to be expected, given the nature of the applications (and the already quite large 1MB L2 cache to which we are comparing).
It isn't until we look at some of our 3D gaming tests that we start to see some more tangible performance gains. In games, there are some decent performance improvements to be had, ranging anywhere from 0 to just under 6%, thanks to the larger cache alone.
Couple the larger cache with a faster FSB and higher clock speed, and the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 is shaping up to be a decent improvement over its predecessor.
Other than the larger L2 cache, Presler as incorporated in the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 provides us with two more enhancements over Smithfield: 1066MHz FSB support and a higher clock speed (3.46GHz).
We wanted to isolate the performance improvement due to the larger L2 cache aside from the other improvements to Presler, so we underclocked our sample and its FSB, and compared it to a Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz).
Looking at a small subset of our tests, we can get a feel for where you can expect the largest performance gains due simply to the increase in L2 cache size. Remember that since L2 access latency on Smithfield was already at 27 cycles, Presler's cache isn't any slower, so what we end up measuring is how large of an impact a 2MB cache has in some of our benchmarks.
| Winstone | Business Winstone 2004 | Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 |
| Presler | 19.0 | 30.2 |
| Smithfield | 18.5 | 29.9 |
Under Business Winstone 2004, we see a boost of just under 3%, thanks to the larger cache size. We have seen the biggest improvements in Winstone, thanks to lower latency caches and higher clock speeds, so it's not too much of a surprise to see a minimal impact here. Content Creation Winstone 2004 shows no real performance impact either.
| Media Encoding | 3dsmax 7 Composite | DVD Shrink | WME9 | H.264 | iTunes |
| Presler | 2.03 | 9.1m | 31.3fps | 10.5m | 50s |
| Smithfield | 2.05 | 8.9m | 31.0fps | 10.5m | 50s |
Our 3D rendering, video encoding and audio encoding tests basically all agree with the earlier results - the added cache doesn't really improve performance here, but that's to be expected, given the nature of the applications (and the already quite large 1MB L2 cache to which we are comparing).
| Gaming | Battlefield 2 | Call of Duty 2 | Quake 4 |
| Presler | 77.3 | 76.2 | 130.6 |
| Smithfield | 73.0 | 75.6 | 125.5 |
It isn't until we look at some of our 3D gaming tests that we start to see some more tangible performance gains. In games, there are some decent performance improvements to be had, ranging anywhere from 0 to just under 6%, thanks to the larger cache alone.
Couple the larger cache with a faster FSB and higher clock speed, and the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 is shaping up to be a decent improvement over its predecessor.
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skunkbuster - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
cramitpal is that you?coldpower27 - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
This is the Pentium Extreme Edition of course it's price is going to be 999US.If you want cheaper Presler cores, wait for the Pentium D 920 to 950 line to com out in Mid January.
Betwon - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
INQ says Presler 920 will be about 240$.It is very interesting that PD820 defeat FX-57 in a SMP game.
phaxmohdem - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
Let's recap, the X2 4800+ was ahead in most tests, and at worst could probably be called the 955 EE's equivilent....
955EE = $999
4800+ = ~$785
Yeah, I'd definately recommend "sticking with AMD for now and re-evaluating Intel's offerings when Conroe arrives."
Did anyone else notice how the lowly 3800+ did better in most gaming scenarios?
955EE = $999
3800+ = ~$315
Tasty :)
GhandiInstinct - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
LOL, honestly your post is the only necessary post here. It compares and contrats the two perfectly in terms of which is a better buy, given the reader has seen all of the benchmarks in which the 4800 beats the 955EE.Intel just can't win because of EGO.
Anemone - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
Kudos because no matter where you sat personally you seemed to have called the shots fairly. I'd agree with the conclusion as well, that you are either Conroe or A64, that the P4 is an overdue dead end. It performs well, but it is hot and uses lots of electricity to do so. Overclocking wasn't needed because, quite frankly the X2 chips oc too, and you'd find they probably do it better.Socket M2 is again, something you "should" wait for if you can, as is Conroe. These are heavy recomendations, you really would be very smart to wait for these two things. Barring that, given the better of two bad options (meaning you have to upgrade now when you should be waiting), AMD is the better choice, partially for the power consumption, partially for the "less of a dead end than a P4" issue.
Still, heavy, heavy emphasis on "you should wait", as a complete changeover is going on with both AMD and Intel and your ability to perform minor upgrades 1-2 years from now will depend on waiting patiently for a few more months.
:)
JarredWalton - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
Socket M2 doesn't appear to be anything special. Why wait 6 months for a 5% performance boost and a RAM change? Just like waiting for Prescott ended up being much ado about nothing, M2 isn't going to be wildly different from today's 939 chips. Get a good socket 939 system with an X2 and SLI, and you should be set for at least 18 months.Calin - Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - link
I don't find SLI important - except for the possibility to run two top of the line video cards. And increased speed won't come from higher RAM speed - not so much anyway in order to keep you waiting.I just wonder how long will the Socket 939 be kept - considering that the value line is the cheaper Socket 754 (cheaper in having a single memory channel, so half as many lines to memory banks). Or if Socket 754 will be abandoned before Socket 939, or if Socket M2/2 (single channel DDR2 memory) will appear.
nserra - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
Two cores on the same packing is an excellent idea!Will amd do that with m2?
Could lower the dual core price and even at 90nm could put 2 dual core processors on the same packing and build a 4 core processor (fake one, but 4 cores there).
ViRGE - Friday, December 30, 2005 - link
The problem with 2 physical cores is that you're forgoing any sort of on-die communication benefits by doing so. It's certainly cheaper for Intel to make things this way, but it's a poor way to go for performance, as it makes it harder for the cores to quickly send data to each other and share resources. It's certainly a valid solution(especially given how Intel didn't have any inter-core communication even when both cores were on the same die), but ultimately a combined die for inter-core communication is superior for performance and scaling.