Gaming benchmarks
Our 2D benchmarks haven't fully tapped into the Extreme Edition's strongpoints. Gaming always does.
That's more like it. Extreme Edition power to the fore. What's worrying for Intel is that AMD's FX-55 is still 2,000 marks ahead. Should there have been a faster E.E released?. I think so. A breakdown of the 23,305 marks can be found here.
Lots of cache equates to good Comanche 4 performance. That's precisely why an Extreme Edition does well, helped by being run on a motherboard with a fast bus.
Our low-detail UT2003 test is an excellent measure of subsystem power. We're looking at a full 20FPS extra over a 3.6GHz Prescott/Alderwood combination but, and it's a big but, around 60FPS slower than an AMD FX-55; the E.E's direct opponent.
It seems the Extreme Edition just isn't extreme enough to head off FX-55 power. That's the major problem I forsee. Intel has done the right thing by raising system bus speed on its revised 925XE chipset but hasn't done enough to wow the deep-pocketed enthusiast with a 3.46GHz E.E processor. It sounds silly to say so but 3.46GHz simply isn't enough clock speed, faster FSB included, to counter the savage power of AMD's best.
