Confused about new chips

dtw · 2006-07-31 09:31:15

I'm about to buy a new system. I had a Pentium D 930 earmarked, about £120/$220, but now we have the Core 2 Duo. Like most people I am confined by budget and I want the most I can get for my money. With the drop in Pentium D prices surely I can now afford an even better Pentium D? And surely a Pentium D is more powerful than equivalent priced Core 2 Duo at this time?

Is that a correct assumption? It has been suggested I go for a C2D compatible motherboard for a later upgrade, which is logical regardless.

By the way, can we not have any "I'd spend more because..." comments - I have a budget for a good reason!

brain0 · 2006-07-31 09:55:00

dtw wrote:

I'm about to buy a new system. I had a Pentium D 930 earmarked, about £120/$220, but now we have the Core 2 Duo. Like most people I am confined by budget and I want the most I can get for my money. With the drop in Pentium D prices surely I can now afford an even better Pentium D? And surely a Pentium D is more powerful than equivalent priced Core 2 Duo at this time?

I don't know the exact prices, but I doubt there is any Pentium D that is as powerful as the cheapest C2D.
About your budget: You will save lots of money over the next few years if you have a Core 2 Duo instead of a Pentium D, as it consumes considerably less power.

Mr Green · 2006-07-31 09:56:05

tough call .... do you wait for AMD to go down .... or if you do not like AMD then which intel to go for read good things about D805 (if I remember that right!)

Runs a little hot but a good clocker cheap.....

http://www.micromart.co.uk/default.aspx … ureid=3210

HTH

Cam · 2006-07-31 10:38:41

And surely a Pentium D is more powerful than equivalent priced Core 2 Duo at this time?

The Core 2 Duo is a next-gen CPU. It uses less pipelines than the old design, its much more power efficient and is considerably quicker than a same-clocked Pentium D. There are benchmarks all over the net that go into the differences and benefits if you want a read, point is what do you want this machine to do? If what you have now is enough but you want to upgrade then get a Pentium D on a C2D-compat motherboard so you can upgrade again later and you'll be right.

dtw · 2006-07-31 13:47:51

No specific usage - just general desktop'ing - obviously I build a lot of software though! I'd build more if I had the power. I have a 1Ghz lappy ATM for all my work...

A bit of a whizz through some reviews seems to suggest that the dual core 2's are significantly faster than a pentium d clocked at 1GHz faster. Therefore I reckon a E6400 could be a winner over the D 930 I was looking at previously. There is also a less then £20 price difference.

Any one got any further advice contrary to obvious?

I want to build a silent system and I was looking a Ninja Scythe heatsink on recommendation...would that be a bit overkill on reputedly cooler proc such as this?

phrakture · 2006-07-31 14:43:20

I'd definately vote for a Core Duo (or Core 2 Duo) as they run far cooler and thus you can use slower fan speeds.

djpharoah · 2006-07-31 15:08:35

Go for the Core Duo 2. Pentium Ds are portable space heaters.

Everything is much better with the cd2

brain0 · 2006-07-31 17:33:02

dtw wrote:

A bit of a whizz through some reviews seems to suggest that the dual core 2's are significantly faster than a pentium d clocked at 1GHz faster. Therefore I reckon a E6400 could be a winner over the D 930 I was looking at previously. There is also a less then £20 price difference.

The E6400 has only 2MB L2 Cache (Allendale core), while the D930 has 4MB. That could make it slower again, maybe. The cheapest C2D with 4MB L2 I can see here is the E6600 (Conroe core) but then, the price difference is higher again. Anyway, I am not sure how much the actual speed would be affected by the L2 difference.

Gullible Jones · 2006-07-31 20:00:36

From what I've heard, not very much, barring extraordinary circumstances... And 2 MB is still a lot of L2 cache. Last I looked most chips had 512 KB.

djpharoah · 2006-08-01 12:48:18

Gullible Jones wrote:

From what I've heard, not very much, barring extraordinary circumstances... And 2 MB is still a lot of L2 cache. Last I looked most chips had 512 KB.

Most amd64s still have 512kb

Arch Linux

#1 2006-07-31 09:31:15

Confused about new chips

#2 2006-07-31 09:55:00

Re: Confused about new chips

#3 2006-07-31 09:56:05

Re: Confused about new chips

#4 2006-07-31 10:38:41

Re: Confused about new chips

#5 2006-07-31 13:47:51

Re: Confused about new chips

#6 2006-07-31 14:43:20

Re: Confused about new chips

#7 2006-07-31 15:08:35

Re: Confused about new chips

#8 2006-07-31 17:33:02

Re: Confused about new chips

#9 2006-07-31 20:00:36

Re: Confused about new chips

#10 2006-08-01 12:48:18

Re: Confused about new chips

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