Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965: Not Just A Speed Bump

Name: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965: Not Just A Speed Bump - Page 9
Brand: Intel

by Marco Chiappetta — Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 10:00 AM EDT

The Cinebench 2003 benchmark is an OpenGL 3D rendering performance test, based on the commercially available Cinema 4D application. This is a multi-threaded, multi-processor aware benchmark that renders a single 3D scene and tracks the length of the entire process. The time it took each test system to render the entire scene is represented in the graph below (listed in seconds).

Cinebench 2003 Performance Tests

3D Modeling & Rendering Tests

The Pentium Extreme Edition 965's performance in the single- and multi-thread Cinebench tests are a mixed bag. In single thread mode, the 965XE was the fasted Intel-built processor, but both of the dual-core Athlons we tested posted better scores. However, in the multi-threaded test, where the 965XE is recognized as four virtual processors, it was able to pull ahead of the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and flagship FX-60.

Futuremark 3DMark05 - CPU Test

Simulated DirectX Gaming Performance

3DMark05's built-in CPU test is a multi-threaded "gaming related" DirectX metric that's useful for comparing relative performance between similarly equipped systems. This test consists of two different 3D scenes that are generated with a software renderer, which is dependant on the host CPU's performance. This means that the calculations normally reserved for your 3D accelerator are instead sent to the central processor. The number of frames generated per second in each test are used to determine the final score.

The CPU performance module built-into Futuremark's 3DMark05 puts the new Pentium Extreme Edition 965 at the head of the pack. The 965XE finished with scores 487 and 565 points higher than the FX-60 and 4800+, respectively. We'll see if 3DMark05's pseudo-synthetic game tests translate to increased performance in actual games on the proceeding pages, though.

Tags: Intel, Speed, Xtreme, extreme, edition, ium, Extreme Edition, Pentium, pen, XT, eme, BU, bump

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com