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LOSTCIRCUITS	SHORTCUTS: New Performance Dimensions Test Configuration Cachemem Sandra Everest Analysis-1 FarCry The Poodle's Core More Benchmarks Conclusion Give Us Some Feedback to Help Us Improve our Reviews
Intel Pentium4 Prescott / 925XE chipset New Dimensions in Performance
(Review by MS November 21, 2004)

Summary

In our original review of Intel’s 925XE chipset we showed that the original 925X chipset when paired with a Prescott CPU delivered substantially higher performance in memory-intensive benchmarks than the nominally more capable 925XE chipset paired with an ExtremeEdition CPU. Despite the lack of lower multiplier settings, we took a Prescott CPU, set it to 14x for a total clock speed of 3.73 GHz, and achieved benchmark results that blew away everything we had seen so far.

Only there was a minor problem....

The introduction of the revamped 925X chipset to add the –E moniker and official support for 1066 MHz clock speed did not ruffle too many feathers in the performance community. As we and others pointed out, the officially supported CPU, namely the ExtremeEdition running at 3.46 GHz on a 13 x multiplier did not seem to be able to handle the bandwidth too well, which goes back to some design peculiarities of the processor.

Combined with a Prescott CPU, the 925XE delivers approximately twice the memory bandwidth as the same mainboard combined with an Extreme Edition CPU. We found similar performance numbers in gaming applications (see below), clearly demonstrating the superior performance of the Prescott / 925XE combo.

For comparison, an Extreme Edition only manages an average of ~ 315 fps in MDK2!

The proposed remedy for the situation is the upcoming release of a Prescott core with a 2 MB L2 cache, which, because of its deeper pipelines and other optimizations, may be able to handle the faster host bus a bit better than the Northwood design-derived Extreme Edition.

We already showed on the original 925 board that at least in theoretical benchmarks, the Prescott has a substantially better performance than the ExtremeEdition, this is especially true for any memory bandwidth measurements where the Prescott stepping achieves much higher bus utilization than the Northwood. By extension, this should result in higher overall performance.

The burning question bugging us from the beginning, of course, concerned what would happen if we transplanted a Prescott processor onto the 925XE platform. As we mentioned in our earlier article, the main handicap for a general adaptation of the Prescott stepping for the 1066 host bus is that there is no support for multipliers lower than 14 x and, therefore, the lowest possible speedgrade is a 3.73 GHz CPU. Although there are quite a few processors that are running at that speed without problem, the increased thermal disspation of at least the pre-“J” steppings are not suited for mass release at that frequency – most of the time the CPU would simply throttle.

For the enthusiast community, the situation would be somewhat different but there are liability concerns along an understandable reluctance to release overclocked processors in the market – it is simply not fitting Intel’s corporate image to release something that is just on the hairy edge.

Of course, this has never precluded us from taking a crystal ball and looking into the future to get an idea of what would happen if…

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