Date:
Sunday , October 31, 2004
Author:
Kyle Bennett
Editor:
Sean Quinn
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Intel's 3.46EE with 1066 FSB and 925XE

Intel's first Pentium 4 with a 1066MHz front side bus makes its debut at 3.46GHz with the supporting chipset, the Intel 925XE. Will a big kick in the bus turn our Pentium 4 back into the gaming leader it used to be?

Introduction

We usually are giddy when new processors hit the test bench, no matter what manufacturer they come from, but this time it is a bit different. With Intel recently announcing that they are moving away from "GHz-oriented projects" and towards a multi-core solution, it makes getting excited about a few more MHz kind of tough. In fact, I guess if I am totally honest with myself, the rate of CPU scaling for the last couple of years has really been sort of boring. Gone are the days of huge performance increases, as we are stuck evaluating what could be described as "incremental trudgery" or something close to it. Sure, big gains are being made over large periods of time, but there hasn't really been anything to get too excited about at one particular instance for a while now. I guess this stark reality will be what we have to deal with until the ground is broken on multi-core technology that should allow us some things to get energized over.

All that said, Intel is pushing forward today with its Pentium 4 line of CPUs and supporting motherboard chipsets, and in that Intel makes a really big step forward. Whether it will really amount to something in the future is yet to be seen. Today, Intel is stepping across the 1GHz mark when it comes to the front side bus that their Pentium 4 line of CPUs ride on.

Today we have the Intel Pentium 4 3.46GHz Extreme Edition and Intel 925XE chipset to share with you.

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While the outside looks the same as most other socket 775 CPUs you might run into, the insides are certainly what counts.

The Specifics

As you can see below, this Pentium 4 3.46GHz Extreme Edition comes to us as any other "EE" would.

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Of course you can see our front side bus, or “FSB”, having a speed rating of 1066MHz. Since this is an Intel “Quad Pumped” bus, the actual bus speed used to define the clock speed of the processor is 266 (1066/4). This multiplied by the processor's multiplier gives us 266*13 and our 3466MHz or 3.46GHz clock speed. Notice the “(12-13)” in our multiplier identification box. Our chip is unlocked so we can use it to test at 3.2GHz levels as well. This tells us we can count on seeing a 3.2/1066 part in retail soon. Once the CPUs get released, you can go to this Intel page and search for new 1066 bus parts very easily.

Our 512KB of Level 2 cache are present along with the healthy amount of Level 3 cache at 2MB. A tad larger than the Prescott core, this "Gallatin" core is built with a 13nm process. Vcore used will range from 1.525 volts to 1.6 volts depending on the yield.

The number that we might find a bit unnerving is a rating of 110.7 watts of total thermal displacement being possible. Bottom line is that while this Gallatin core is not as hot as a Prescott, it is not cool running or anything close to it.

The mating chipset we have to go with our 1066MHz bus processors is basically a modified Alderwood or 925X chipset that we saw launched here not too long ago along with the new CPU and socket form factor. If you need all the ins and outs of the chipset, they can be found at the above link. There is no sense boring most of you with the same details again. This 925XE chipset supports only DDR2, but still at the same 533MHz speed we saw with the 925X. It does officially support DDR2-400 as well. That said, while tinkering with the board, we were easily able to run DDR2 speeds of 710MHz with our Corsair DDR2-533 512MB sticks.