Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965

Far Cry:

In much the same way that F.E.A.R. didn't really show much of a performance benefit for dual core processors, Far Cry shows us that the single core processors performed better than their similarly clocked dual core counterparts. However, the difference between a single core processor and its dual core counterpart at the same clock speed is no more than a four frames per second deficit.

When we increased the resolution and in game details, there was still an element of CPU limitation in this title. The difference between dual core and single core processors was reduced with the higher resolution, too. The Pentium XE 965 and Pentium 4 XE 3.73GHz performed almost exactly the same with the single core processor a mere 0.6 frames per second faster than Intel's final NetBurst chip.

Closing Thoughts...

As we suspected, the Pentium Extreme Edition 965 processor is just a speed bump over the previous flagship Extreme Edition where performance is concerned.

In multi-threaded video encoding scenarios, the Pentium Extreme Edition 965 trades blows with the Athlon 64 FX-60, but the FX-60 remains the faster of the two on aggregate. In single threaded tests, it performs similarly to the Prescott based Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz. It's no slough, in that respect, but it's not as fast as AMD's single or dual core processors that have a much higher instruction per clock count.

Gaming is a mixed bag at the moment, because almost all of the current shipping games are single threaded, thus showing no tangible benefit to having a dual core processor. However, they don't really show any massive drawbacks either. Quake 4 is one of the first games to show performance benefits for dual core processors. Intel's Pentium Extreme Edition 965 came out on top of the pile in our high-detail test at 1280x1024 - this came as a bit of a surprise to us.

All in all, the Pentium Extreme Edition 965 brings a respectable end to the NetBurst architecture, but it's still questionable whether many users have a use for a CPU capable of simultaneously handling four logical threads, especially gamers. The Quake 4 test proves that there will be benefits for gamers in the future, but we'd recommend saving some money right now and getting one of the slower dual core processors from either Intel or AMD.

This is especially the case with Conroe coming later this year - we can't wait to get our mits on that, in all honesty. AMD's move to DDR2 will also take place later this year with the switch to Socket AM2. There's no way to future proof yourself at this moment in time so, providing you've got a Pentium 4 running at speeds above 3.2GHz or an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or higher, you're going to be able to get the most out of your video card and also maintain a good experience when using your PC in more general-use scenarios.

The CPU war is going to get damn interesting in a few months...