More 3.46GHz Extreme Edition

More 3.46GHz Extreme Edition

Naturally, the processor architecture’s other features remain identical. The Northwood core sports 8KB of L1 data cache, 512KB of L2 cache, and a 2MB L3 on top of that. Packed with 178 million transistors in a 237 square-millimeter package, Intel rates the chip with a thermal design power of up to 110.7 watts running at 1.6V. It doesn’t support SSE3, it doesn’t come with 64-bit extensions, there’s no such thing as SpeedStep on the desktop yet, and you shouldn't expect much overclocking headroom from the 130nm architecture that has already been abandoned in favor of the 90nm, hyper-pipelined Prescott.

LGA775 Socket

Like the 3.4GHz LGA775 chip that emerged in June, this 3.46GHz part works exclusively with the new processor interface. Of course, because it also employs a different front side bus setting, it won’t function properly on older 915P and 925X motherboards.

The 925XE Express Chipset

Instead, you’ll need a motherboard based on Intel’s 925XE chipset, an updated version of its predecessor that adds support for a 1066MHz front side bus. The benefit of 925XE is that it establishes parity between the processor and memory buses, both of which are now able to transfer up to 8.5 GBps of information. The higher front-side bus speed also sets the stage for Pentium 4 processors to come – some as soon as this year – based on the Prescott core and running at 1066MHz as well.

Intel reference motherbard backplate

It doesn’t do much else beyond the features introduced with Intel’s 925X, though. That’s not to say it’s a bad chipset. In fact, Intel’s 925X was the first core logic with support for PCI Express, comprehensive Serial ATA functionality, a high-definition audio standard, and DDR2 memory. To the contrary, 925X is very much robust and the 925XE takes that excellent feature set a step further with additional performance and support for lower-latency memory (DDR2-533 CAS3). Even still, that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll need a new motherboard to support the faster FSB speed.