Well, when I tell you guys to visit us often, I am not kidding
Interestingly, Intel PR confirmed that a BIOS upgrade is not a requirement to run the new CPU. The 2MB L3 cache of the Xeon MP...euh... Pentium 4 EE will be recognized without upgrading the BIOS. This also applies for boards from other manufacturers (besides Intel).
Even more Interesting is that the default multiplier of our Pentium 4 EE test sample was 17, or in other words this seems to be a 3.4 GHz sample! Now it is possible that our AOPEN AX4C Max (i875 chipset) is responsible for this, but I doubt it. In the past 2 years, I have never seen any Intel CPU that could use a multiplier higher than it's default multiplier. Some samples were unlocked, but could only use *lower* multipliers. So, we do not even have Pentium 4 EE benchmarks, we can also add 3.4 GHz results. It seems that Intel could push the Pentium 4 EE to 3.4 GHz fairly easy, because this sample was running at 3.4 GHz with core voltage of 1.55V.
Ok, here are the benchmarks. All benchmarks are done on the AOPEN AX4CMax, with 2x 512 MB Corsair XMS DDR400 (2-3-3-7), and a Leadtek Geforce FX 5900 Ultra 256 MB. All benchmarks have been performed in Ace's lab (not in Intel's...)
Comanche 1024x768x32
P4 3.4 GHz EE : 73.8
P4 3.2 GHz EE : 70.4
P4 3.2 GHz : 61.8
Unreal Tournament Asbestos Botmatch 1280x1024x32
P4 3.4 GHz EE : 104.4
P4 3.2 GHz EE : 99.7
P4 3.2 GHz : 90.4
Wolfenstein Ennemy Territory 1024x768x32 High quality. Many thanks to our hardcore online gamer, Hawski, alias Uffe Merrild.
P4 3.4 GHz EE : 142.6
P4 3.2 GHz EE : 135.9
P4 3.2 GHz : 130.8
Unreal II (patched to 1.03)
P4 3.4 GHz EE : 68.9
P4 3.2 GHz EE : 65.6
P4 3.2 GHz : 61.2
Cinebench 2003
P4 3.4 GHz EE : 407
P4 3.2 GHz EE : 386
P4 3.2 GHz : 380
As we expected the 2 MB L3-cache can not do any wonders for Games, which are somewhat cacheable but also need streams of new data (memory intensive). The best result is a 14% in Comanche, which is of course quite impressive, as it means the L3-cache pushes the 3.2 GHz to the level of a 3.7 GHz Pentium 4. Quite a few games give only a 5-6% performance increase. Whether or not the P4 3.2 GHz will be an interesting option for hard core games will depend on the pricetag.
Is this kind of performance good enough to counter the Athlon 64 FX? Well, more hot stuff coming up here at Ace's hardware... Expect 3 new CPUs in our upcoming review!!
