Courtesy of its dual Hyper-Threading enabled execution cores, the 3.2GHz Pentium Extreme Edition 840 was a high performing CPU in many multi-threaded applications, but it was clearly outperformed by AMD's high-end Athlon 64 X2 processors, especially in gaming scenarios where the processor's second core wasn't fully utilized. With today's official introduction of the Pentium Extreme Edition 955 processor though, Intel aims to close the performance gap between its flagship processor and AMD's. The new Pentium Extreme Edition 955 improves upon the older Pentium Extreme Edition 840 in virtually every meaningful way. The 955XE is clocked higher, 3.46GHz vs. 3.2GHz, it features double the amount of L2 cache, 4MB vs. 2MB, and it has a faster front side bus as well, 1066MHz vs. 800MHz. The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 is also manufactured using Intel's new 65nm process, which lowers the processor's power requirements and makes them less expensive for Intel to produce. On the surface, the new Pentium Extreme Edition 955 has a lot going for it. What do you say we fire it up, and see how it performs against the best AMD has to offer? We thought you'd like that.



Link: Hot Hardware