Intel's Pentium Extreme Edition 965: The Last of a Dying Breed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 22, 2006 1:51 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
We were given a pleasant surprise by Intel at IDF just a few weeks ago: a fully functional and benchmark-able system based on Intel's next-generation desktop processor, codenamed Conroe. The performance that we saw was stunning and the power efficiency promised is a welcome change from the Pentium 4's NetBurst micro-architecture. But after leaving sunny California and returning to reality, we found another Intel chip in our labs; it just wasn't Conroe.
With the heatspreader on top of the chip, you could hardly tell it apart from a Conroe. It looked and smelled like one, but that's where the similarities end. While the fastest Conroe based processors will barely exceed 3.0GHz, this chip is clocked at a mighty 3.73GHz. Indeed, what Intel had sent us was no Conroe. It was the new dual core Pentium Extreme Edition 965, a chip that's being announced today, but one that won't actually be shipping in retail systems until next month. And yes, it's another very high clocked, deeply pipelined CPU from Intel. It's not the power efficient, high performing, competitive part that we want from Intel; it's yet another bump in the rocky road of NetBurst.
Needless to say, it's not a chip that we were too excited about, especially after having our appetites whet by Conroe earlier this month. But the new Extreme Edition did manage to surprise us in a number of areas, some of which may surprise you as well. When we last looked at the Pentium Extreme Edition 955, we found its power consumption to be a bit troubling. The move to 65nm didn't seem to do much for the Pentium 4, as AMD was still able to maintain a significant advantage in power consumption. As it turns out, the initial 65nm parts from Intel did not support all of the power management features that were introduced in later versions of Intel's 90nm silicon. Mainly, support for EIST (Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology) and the new C1E enhanced halt state, both of which were introduced over a year ago initially with C1E on the 5xxJ series of processors and later adding EIST on the 6xx series of processors. For whatever reason, neither technology made its way into the Presler EE chips (65nm dual core Extreme Edition). With the new Extreme Edition 965, Intel re-added support for C1E, but EIST is still not supported (note that C1E support was added to later steppings of the EE 955, just not the initial stepping). The two technologies vary as follows (taken from our Pentium 4 6xx review):
C1E - Enhanced Halt State
Also, keep in mind that AMD's Cool'n'Quiet is enabled, and the EE 965's C1E support is kicking in to keep its power consumption low at idle as well.
Under load, the comparison is also very close:
In our first look at Intel's Presler core with the Extreme Edition 955, we investigated the benefits of Hyper Threading with a dual core CPU as well as the performance impact of Presler over Smithfield. So, be sure to consult that article if you want a more in-depth look at Intel's 65nm dual core desktop CPU.
With the heatspreader on top of the chip, you could hardly tell it apart from a Conroe. It looked and smelled like one, but that's where the similarities end. While the fastest Conroe based processors will barely exceed 3.0GHz, this chip is clocked at a mighty 3.73GHz. Indeed, what Intel had sent us was no Conroe. It was the new dual core Pentium Extreme Edition 965, a chip that's being announced today, but one that won't actually be shipping in retail systems until next month. And yes, it's another very high clocked, deeply pipelined CPU from Intel. It's not the power efficient, high performing, competitive part that we want from Intel; it's yet another bump in the rocky road of NetBurst.
Needless to say, it's not a chip that we were too excited about, especially after having our appetites whet by Conroe earlier this month. But the new Extreme Edition did manage to surprise us in a number of areas, some of which may surprise you as well. When we last looked at the Pentium Extreme Edition 955, we found its power consumption to be a bit troubling. The move to 65nm didn't seem to do much for the Pentium 4, as AMD was still able to maintain a significant advantage in power consumption. As it turns out, the initial 65nm parts from Intel did not support all of the power management features that were introduced in later versions of Intel's 90nm silicon. Mainly, support for EIST (Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology) and the new C1E enhanced halt state, both of which were introduced over a year ago initially with C1E on the 5xxJ series of processors and later adding EIST on the 6xx series of processors. For whatever reason, neither technology made its way into the Presler EE chips (65nm dual core Extreme Edition). With the new Extreme Edition 965, Intel re-added support for C1E, but EIST is still not supported (note that C1E support was added to later steppings of the EE 955, just not the initial stepping). The two technologies vary as follows (taken from our Pentium 4 6xx review):
C1E - Enhanced Halt State
"Whenever the OS executes the halt instruction, the CPU enters what is known as the halt state. Architecturally, what's going on in a halt state is the clock signal is shut off to the CPU for some period of time. With no clock signal, none of the logic in the chip will do anything and thus power consumption is reduced. Performance is also significantly reduced; however, the halt instruction isn't usually called during application usage, so the performance aspects of the halt state aren't very important.EIST:
The problem with the halt state is that it does nothing to reduce voltage, only current draw by stopping clocks from going to the CPU. Since Power varies linearly with both current and voltage (P = I * V), you're effectively only addressing half of the problem. The Enhanced Halt State, as Intel calls it, does two things: it reduces the clock speed of the CPU by decreasing the clock multiplier down to its minimum value (on the EE 965 series, that's 14x, or 2.8GHz), then reducing the voltage. The clock speed is reduced and then the voltage is dropped, to maintain stability.
Intel insists that the enhanced halt state is a significantly lower power state than the conventional halt state, thanks to the reduction in voltage in addition to the reduction in clock speed. While the standard halt state causes a linear reduction in power, Intel's enhanced halt state causes an exponential decrease in power, potentially offering better power savings than the standard halt state. The real world impact obviously depends on how idle your system happens to be."
"What EIST does is very similar to AMD's Cool'n'Quiet. It is demand based reduction in CPU clock speed and voltage. Using the same mechanism of adjusting clock speed and voltage, based on the application demand, the processor will dynamically increase/decrease its clock speed between its minimum clock and its normal operating frequency, as well as voltage, in order to optimize for power consumption.Because of the support for C1E and Intel's 65nm process, power consumption is finally competitive with AMD. Let's have a look at idle power consumption first:
Because of the way EIST (and AMD's Cool'n'Quiet) works, there's inherently a drop in performance. The idea is this: if you're performing a task that's not using 100% of the CPU, the CPU will operate at a slightly reduced frequency in order to conserve power. So, while some tasks will require that the system run at full speed, others will run at lower speeds. "
Also, keep in mind that AMD's Cool'n'Quiet is enabled, and the EE 965's C1E support is kicking in to keep its power consumption low at idle as well.
Under load, the comparison is also very close:
In our first look at Intel's Presler core with the Extreme Edition 955, we investigated the benefits of Hyper Threading with a dual core CPU as well as the performance impact of Presler over Smithfield. So, be sure to consult that article if you want a more in-depth look at Intel's 65nm dual core desktop CPU.
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asliarun - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
"Can´t belive Anand is promoting a CPU that will not be launched in next 6 months."What is wrong with reviewing a CPU that isn't in the market today, anyway? Isn't that why you and me visit hardware review sites anyway? In any case, this article is a benchmark/evaluation, NOT a promotion. Ironically, the final recommendation by Anand is NOT to buy the friggin CPU, so i don't see which way this article can be termed a "promotion".
Jeez, give the author some respect.
Ok, you're not a fanboi, and nor am i. Yes, we all know that AMD's performance today is better by a decent margin. However, what's with the flamewars about Conroe benchies not being done in an "ideal" setting, or even with this review? Ok, the Conroe benchmark wasn't totally under the reviewers' control, but give the authors a break, man. Are you telling me that all the reviewers who managed to review Conroe didn't smell anything fishy (if indeed there was something?)? Please think a few times before trashing someone's reputation, especially because they've spent years toiling for it. All it takes us to trash it, on the other hand, is a few clicks.
dev0lution - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
I don't know why they continue to slap an Extreme Edition label on the models lately, unless they mean "the extreme limits of what we can do with this architecture".I would have hoped a processor with a higher clock, 65nm process and twice the cache would bench better and be more power efficient than the FX-60.
mino - Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - link
there are at least 10 cases where 965 shows unreasonably high score compared to 955.The is something fishy here. These score are either fake(surely not) or the margin of error is so huge it makes no sense to publish them.
It's not OK whem from 7% or so frequency bump on the CPU one gets 15% performance bum in Game !!!
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - link
The F.E.A.R. numbers for the 955 were incorrect, I've fixed the errors. Thanks for the heads up :)Take care,
Anand
mino - Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - link
bum == bumpKeithTalent - Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - link
Should I assume the three FEAR charts are at different resolutions even though they all show at 1024x768. Or maybe I am missing something else altogether?AnandThenMan - Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - link
You know, putting Conroe benchmarks in there is pretty lame. Firstly, Controe cannot be purchased by ANYONE. Secondly, this is not a review of Conroe, period.Why not put in some other speculative benches in, like an overclocked X2 etc. I don't care how fast Conroe actually ends up being. Tacking on the Conroe benches at the end smacks of Intel brown nosing. Reviews are about current products we can all actually purchase. Very unprofessional.
Houdani - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
You know, Anand was doing all of us a favor by showing us Intel's latest offering, and then going the extra mile to show us why it would be a poor decision to actually buy one. Anand's point was simply to keep in mind that (to the best of everyone's knowledge) Conroe will very likely shame this PEE965 offering. He used one Intel product to spit upon another Intel product.You call that brown nosing? What an absurd notion.
krwilsonn - Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - link
Considering that if Conroe is as great as it is supposed to be, in a few months you will be looking at those same benchmarks and Intel will then have the lead. Since this is likely the case, why not include it? Because it is Intel? Aren't we determining the FASTEST cpu? If that is likely to change in the near future than it is to everyone's benefit to point that out.redbone75 - Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - link
I think the review did what it was supposed to do, and that was compare the latest EE to the best AMD has to offer. While Anand traditionally doesn't include hardware that can't be purchased at present, please remember that the 965 won't be out until April. Would you have preferred we not have this review at all? Furthermore, including comparisons to Conroe were more for the purpose of reminding prospective buyers of the EE what will be on the horizon, not to show Conroe's dominance over all available processors, AMD or otherwise. I'm dying to build a new rig right now, but I know I will suffer an acute case of buyer's remorse once Conroe is available in some few short months and a much better chip is available for the price range I'm looking at.