Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
The830,840,and9xxmodelsalsoincludeEnhancedIntelSpeedStepTechnology,which
results in cooler and quieter PC operation by providing a wide range of processor speeds
in response to workload and thermal issues.
ThePentiumExtremeEditionisahigh-endversionofthePentiumD,butwiththefollow-
ing differences:
• HT Technology is supported, enabling each core to simulate two processor cores for
even better performance with multithreaded applications.
• Enhanced Intel Speed Step Technology is not supported.
• It includes unlocked clock multipliers, enabling easy overclocking.
Table 3.16
compares the features of the various Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition
processors.
Table 3.16 Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition Processors
Intel Core Processors
During production of the Pentium 4, Intel realized that the high power consumption of
theNetBurstarchitecturewasbecomingaseriousproblem.Astheclockspeedsincreased,
so did the power consumption. At the heart of the problem was the 31-stage deep intern-
al pipeline, which made the processor fast but much less efficient. To continue evolving
processors with faster versions featuring multiple cores, asolution was needed toincrease
efficiency and reduce power consumption dramatically. Fortunately, Intel had the perfect
solution in its mobile processors, already regarded as the most efficient PC processors in
the world. Starting with the Pentium M, Intel's mobile processors used a completely dif-
ferent internal architecture from its desktop processors such as the Pentium 4. In fact, the
Pentium M mobile processor was originally based on the Pentium III! To create a power-
ful new desktop processor, Intel started with the highly efficient mobile processors and
then added several new features and technologies to increase performance. These new
processors were designed from the outset to be multicore chips, with two or more cores
per physical chip. The result of this development was the Core processor family, which
was released on July 27, 2006 as the Core 2.
