Extreme gamers and media enthusiasts have a new set of high-performance products at their fingertips today as Intel Corporation introduced a new platform for people who like to push their PCs to the limit. The Intel® Pentium® 4 processor Extreme Edition supporting Hyper-Threading (HT) Technology and a higher-speed system bus enabled by the new Intel® 925XE Express chipset form the foundation of this new enthusiast platform.
“PC enthusiasts are enjoying more rich media and gaming content than ever as the PC becomes central to the digital home,” said Bill Siu, Intel vice president and general manager of the Desktop Platforms Group. “The new 925XE Express chipset, combined with the Intel Pentium 4 processor Extreme Edition, is another example of the platform approach we’re moving toward – bringing chipsets, processors and other components together to provide specific benefits to PC buyers.”
The new Intel 925XE Express chipset platform is an extension of the popular and rapidly proliferating 915/925X Express chipset family launched earlier this year. A new 1066 MHz system bus-the main data path between the CPU and system memory-will bring enhanced levels of performance to the latest cutting-edge games and media tools that require extra horsepower. With a maximum data throughput improvement of up to 33 percent** between the CPU and system memory (compared with systems using an 800MHz system bus), a 1066 MHz system bus can enable faster frame rates for both gaming and video editing. This helps maintain smooth, realistic 3D gaming and glitch-free video in the heat of action.
The 925XE Express chipset family also includes the industry-leading features initially brought to the PC platform by the 915/925X Express chipsets such as Intel® High Definition Audio, fast DDR2 memory, and PCI Express* capabilities.
New Extreme Performance Levels
The Pentium 4 processor Extreme Edition at 3.46 GHz offers enhanced performance with a large two-megabyte Level 3 cache and HT Technology. A single Intel processor supporting HT Technology presents itself to newer operating systems and applications as two virtual processors. The processor can work on two sets of tasks simultaneously using resources that otherwise would sit idle, getting more work done in the same amount of time. Performance boosts vary and can reach up to 25 percent when the computer system has an Intel processor with HT Technology and enabled chipset, BIOS, operating system and application software.
With more than 60 million Intel processors featuring HT Technology sold and counting, more people are enjoying improved responsiveness when running multiple applications. For example, gamers often have simultaneous online chats with team members while gaming, and media enthusiasts typically work with several high-definition audio and video streams at the same time.
The 925XE Express chipset also implements improved memory timings compared to the 915 Express chipset, allowing power users to reach even higher levels of performance. Additional technical information about the Intel 925XE Express chipset is available at: http://developer.intel.com/design/chipsets.
Pricing and Availability
In addition to availability through computer manufacturers, Intel also is shipping the boxed Intel Pentium 4 processor Extreme Edition 3.46 GHz to Intel-authorized distributors for system integrators worldwide. In 1,000 unit quantities, the Pentium 4 processor Extreme Edition at 3.46 GHz sells for $999. For computer makers and system integrators, Intel also announced availability of the D925XECV2 and D925XEBC2 ATX and micro-ATX form factor desktop motherboards. Additional technical information on these desktop boards is available at: http://developer.intel.com/design/motherbd.
