Intel Pentium Processor 965 Extreme Edition Review

The New Stepping

When we first booted up our Intel Pentium 965 Extreme Edition Processor we noticed that nothing was able to correctly identify the processor. CPU-Z version 1.32.1 and Windows XP Professional registered the processor as a 6GHz piece of silicion. While we wish this was true we know it is not.

CPU-Z did correctly display the core speed of the process as 3733.5MHz with the multiplier set at x14 and the front side bus (FSB) running at 266.7MHz for a final frequency of 1066MHz. The cache shows 2048KB per core, for a grand total of 4MB of cache on the processor.

We fired up the most recent version of Intel’s Processor Identification Utility (build date 2/10/2006) and it too did not register the processor correctly calling it a “Future Intel Processor”. Everything seemed to register as we saw in CPU-Z so hopefully the information is correct. With that we see that Intel has a new CPU stepping on their Extreme Edition Processor family. If you look back to our article on the Intel Pentium Processor 955 you will see that that processor was built using CPU stepping 2. The new stepping introduces Enhanced Halt State (C1E) to the Intel 965 processors, which helps reduce the power consumption. According to Intel all of the 955 processors now being made are also on the same stepping.