Pentium D 960 Review

If you've been shopping for a processor, you may have noticed that Intel silently launched a new Pentium D CPU recently, the dual-core 3.6GHz Pentium D 960. The gang at HardwareZone plucked one fresh from the assembly line and have posted their thoughts about its performance and value.  Not a bad chip -- it's almost a shame Conroe is right around the corner.

"Quite frankly, we thought the Pentium 965 Extreme Edition from Intel was the last attempt at rivaling AMD with their existing Presler based CPUs. While we are still right that they haven't put up any speedier models than they already have, a check recently on their Pentium D lineup online saw yet another silent addition - the Pentium D 960. Following their model number nomenclature, the Pentium D 960 is part of their mainstream dual-core offering (albeit on the higher-end side) that still utilizes the somewhat limited 800MHz FSB for communication and data transfer to and fro the processor, but the core clock has now been bumped up to 3.6GHz. Still not the highest clock speed for an Intel dual-core processor, but it healthily surpasses the Pentium XE 955 and that should make for an interesting comparison."