Asustek has recently unveiled details about its plans to develop high-end processing devices for Intel’s desktop computers. A new motherboard from the Taiwanese company is being designed to support the upcoming chip and chipset.
Asustek’s P5WDG2-WS motherboard will support the Pentium Extreme Edition 955, a processor that has yet to appear in Intel’s pricing list. The Pentium Extreme Edition is aimed at gamers and PC users seeking the highest performance capabilities from their processing devices. The chip is equipped with a 2 MB L2 cache per core, supports multi-threading technology, as well as virtualization, and features a 1066 MHz bus routing.
The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 appears to be a variant of the Presler chip that Intel announced earlier this year at the Intel Developer Forum. A spokesperson for the manufacturer mentioned that they are preparing to launch the new 975 chipset but declined to comment on the Extreme Edition 955.
Presler is the first desktop processor built on Intel’s 65-nanometer technology. Technically, it is considered a dual-core chip, but in reality, it is a multi-chip module (two separate devices packaged together). This approach is cheaper and easier to manage compared to building two processors into a single chip.
Presler and its single-core counterpart, Cedar Mill, seem to mark the end of the Netburst architecture, which has been the foundation for the Pentium IV since 2000 and more recently for the Pentium D. Netburst was designed to enhance clock speed stability. However, the high speeds resulted in significant power consumption, and Intel faced numerous issues related to heat dissipation. Around mid-2006, the world’s leading chip manufacturer will introduce three multi-core chips based on a “new generation microarchitecture.” This architecture is based on principles aimed at reducing power consumption, similar to the approach used in the Pentium M for laptops.
Intel plans to release Presler in the first quarter of 2006 with an approximate price of $999; however, the timeline for Asustek’s motherboard availability to computer manufacturers has yet to be announced.
