The affordable Pentium D 900-series is Intel's current mainstream dual-core CPU offering for consumers. Priced lower than the 'equivalent' 800-series, they have proven to be interesting competitors to the dearer Athlon 64 X2 series. Exactly where do they stand and how does the brand new 960 model fit in the picture? In this article, we?ve lined up the entire Pentium D 900 series which involves all five processors, along with a couple of Athlon 64 X2 processors to give you an idea how they rank. More importantly, we'll be focusing on Intel's latest Pentium D 960 model and have pitted it up against the Intel Pentium 955 Extreme Edition processor as well as AMD's current best X2 model. One thing's for sure, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 series are more environmentally friendlier than the Intel counterparts as far as the specifications go. With lower thermals and support for AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet technology for even more power savings and low noise operation, this is one area that Intel is finding it hard to rival even with their advanced 65nm silicon process technology.

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