T H E U P S H O T
DECEMBER 2004 MA XIMUMPC 23
T H I S M O N T H : Hot Rod CPUs, Part Deux!
U
nshackled from registered RAM and packing 200MHz more than the FX-53, the
Athlon 64 FX-55 simply wailed on the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition in our tests
and earns our championship belt with a near-unanimous decision. With PCI
Express boards about to become available for this platform in the near future, there’s
only once choice if you want the fastest CPU in town: Athlon 64 FX-.Infrastructure: You could fill a
dump truck with the number of
Socket 478 motherboards on the
market. LGA775 is ramping up to
fill the shoes of Socket 478, but the
availability for this new socket isn’t
there yet. Winner: TieForward compatibility: Right now, you have to make a
trade-off in the upper echelons of computing. If you want
DDR2, the only game in town has an Intel badge on it.
However, given a choice between DDR2 and both 64-bit
support and NX support, we’re inclined to pick the 64-bit/
NX combo. Winner: Athlon 64 FX-Performance: Since the
introduction of the 925X and
925XE chipsets, our love for
the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
has waned. We did, after all,
drop the P4EE for its sibling,
the P4 Prescott, in this year’s
Dream Machine. With its newly
inflated 1066MHz frontside bus,
we thought the sparks might
be rekindled, but alas, we can’t
shake the sensation that this love
affair is over. Over! For the details
of our breakup, see page 24.
Winner: Athlon 64 FX-THE SPECS 3.46GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
Frontside bus 1066MHz
Interface LGA
L1 cache 8KB data / 8KB trace cache
L2 cache 512KB
L3 cache 2MB
Process technology 130nm
Price $999 (@1,000 units)Flexibility: The Pentium
4 Extreme Edition’s
traditional design
continues to make it far
more flexible than the
Athlon 64 series. If, for
example, Intel releases a
chipset with DDR2/
support in 2005 and
you want to upgrade, all
you have to do is buy a
new mobo and drop in
your EE. It doesn’t get
any easier than that.
Winner: Pentium 4
Extreme EditionContinued on next page
I N T E L 3. 4 6 G H Z P E N T I U M 4 E X T R E M E E D I T I O N
Durability: After months
of service, Intel officials
tell us they’ve received
only a few reports of bent
pins with the new LGA
interface. Unfortunately,
months of complaints from
motherboard vendors, bad
press on the Internet, and
a few anecdotal stories
we’ve heard from OEMs
have us as scared as an
Orange Alert. The reality is
that installation is a more
delicate process here.
Winner: Athlon 64 FX-Price: We really want to meet the guy
or gal who buys the P4EE because it’s
$999 but not $1,000. Just call it $1,000,
for crying out loud. In the end, the
prices of both the P4EE and Athlon 64
FX-55 make them painful, bank account-
emptying purchases. Winner: No one