Part 1: Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 955

Intel Unleashes the Presler Processor

Usually around this time of the year we show you dozens of benchmarks with the next generation Intel Processor with the whole AMD versus Intel mentality. Legit Reviews is still going to do that, but just not today. This morning at 10am Intel announced its new Pentium Processor 955 Extreme Edition CPU, formerly code-named Presler. This chip, which goes on sale to the public on January 16 for $999, is the second generation of dual-core consumer desktop CPU’s from the chip giant. Intel has made a number of changes to it’s dual core processor series and many will call this Intel’s first true dual core processor. This processor features two separate cores with 2MB L2 cache each for a total of 4MB, a 266MHz Quad Pumped Front Side Bus for a solid 1066MHz system bus, Intel Virtualization Technology, and it was all done on the 65nm process over the previous 90nm package found on the previous Prescott and Extreme Edition processors.

After getting the Intel Pentium Processor 955 Extreme Edition “Presler”, holy cow that is a mouthful, we quickly found out that a couple rumors going around the internet were not true. One was about the temperatures and the other being the overclockability of the processor in general. Without further ado let’s look at the new gem in Intel’s Enthusiast portfolio. Taking a look at the Presler (Shown above in the middle) we can easily notice that it looks different from the Intel 5xx, 6xx, and 8xx processors that surround the new kid on the block. Let’s see if CPU-Z can read the processor correctly.

It looks like CPU-Z is showing everything okay except for the voltage that the Vcore is running at. Our unlocked processor is running at a multiplier of 13 with a front side bus (FSB) of 266MHz for a total core frequency of 3.46GHz. Not a bad core speed for a CPU having doubled the cache than the previous Extreme Edition, which was the Intel 840 with a total cache of 2MB.