FanBoy TechWeb

Disclaimer:

_{Overclocking is dangerous to your rig, voids your warranty, and can harm you emotionally and physically. Proceed at your own risk.}

I. Introduction

The Intel® Pentium® D 950 Processor is currently nearing the top end flavor of the Intel® Pentium® D 900 series of processor. Above this, and the greatest Intel® Pentium® D 960 will be the next best thing. Of course, the Extreme Edition is currently out there, but it is not within its league. This processor may look to be not so attractive compared to the lower brethren Intel® Pentium® D 920 and even lower and a lot cheaper Intel® Pentium® D 805, but the market segment for this processor is for those who still likes power of clockage coupled with dual core functionality. In non-dual-core-aware games, the clock frequency still plays a big role into the bottom line FPS of the system.

And with today's users that require the power of simultaneous computing found in a dual-core processor, the Intel® Pentium® D processor brings this power to the desktop. An Intel dual-core processor delivers consumer value by providing additional computing resources that expand the PC's capabilities and provide platform-level advancements for consumers in the form of higher throughput and simultaneous computing. With an Intel Pentium D processor users may perform multiple tasks such as digital rendering and gaming all while running virus scan or other background tasks seamlessly.. It has great features for digital home computing, such as support for EM64T to enable the system to address more than 4GB of system memory and advance security functionality thru Execute Disable Bit that can prevent certain classes of malicious "buffer overflow" attacks when combined with a supporting operating system.

A not-so-well-known capability of this processor is that this has hardware support for Virtualization technology. As per Chipzilla: "Virtualization Technology will allow a platform to run multiple operating systems and applications in independent partitions. With virtualization, one computer system can function as multiple "virtual" systems. With processor and I/O enhancements to Intel's various platforms, Intel Virtualization Technology can improve the performance and robustness of today's software-only virtual machine solutions."

"Within the digital office and enterprise, for example, businesses will be able to isolate a portion of a managed PC to perform system upgrades and maintenance without interrupting the end-user. IT managers could also create one desktop PC build that can function independently as both a business and personal system, keeping software loads and virus attacks separate, or one that runs different operating systems and software for different or legacy tasks. Multiple servers can be combined into one system, running different applications and operating systems, providing advantages for IT tasks such as server consolidation, legacy migration and security."

If you would like to know more about Intel® VT, check their website.

This processor is slated high above in the current line up of Intel® Pentium® D 900 series that is based on the newer socket. And as such, can perform really well even on stock settings and overclocking. However, since the focus of this topic is about overclocking, a portion delegated to overclocking is in order. Time to get this baby going, but first, let's lay down the details of this processor.

II. Specification

The Intel® Pentium® D 950 Processor is based on the new "socket" LGA775. It is based on the Presler core, with 2x2048KB of L2 cache. This processor is seated atop the high end of the said Intel® Pentium® D 900 series that runs with 800MHz. It has EM64T enabled, and have XD (Execute Disable) feature as well as Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 and 3. Like other non Extreme series, it doesn't have Hyperthreading.

The Intel® Pentium® D 950 has the following specifications:

• sSpec: SL94P
• Frequency: 3400MHz (3.4GHz)
• Core: Presler
• Process: 65nm
• Package: LGA775
• Core Voltage:1.25v-1.4v
• Bus Speed: 200MHz
• L2 Cache: 4096KB
• Multiplier: 17
• Stepping: B1
• Thermal Specification: 68.6°C
• Thermal Guideline: 95.0W
• Platform Compatibility: 05A
• EM64T: Yes
• Execute Disable: Yes
• Hyperthreading Technology: No
• Virtualization: Yes
• Core per Package: 2
• L2 Cache per Core: 2048KB