AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2 GHz or Pentium D 925

[snsd]

Hi: I just got excellent advice on this site and decided to keep a Pentium E2140 instead of a Pentium D 925. Now I'm debating between the Pentium D and an older Athlon.

I have a PC with an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2 GHz processor with 1 GB of RAM and XP Media Center. I also have a Pentium D 925 3.0 Ghz with 1.5 GB of RAM and Vista Business. I do not do any gaming...just basic Microsoft Office, some home video editing, web surfing... I'm going to sell one of them but am not sure which to sell. I like XP - but my guess is that the Pentium D even with Vista will probably run a lot faster. Any quick comments? I won't be doing any overclocking...(not even sure what that is). Just trying to make a reasonable decision so a simple response (if possible) is all I'm looking for.

Thanks,

Dave

 

[MarcVenice]

The Athlon is a fair bit faster, and should be equal in terms of memory, knowing Vista is more of a memory hog then XP. Next time keep it to 1 thread though ... Both XP and Vista copy's are OEM ?

You should compare it though, which PC do you like better. Theoretically, all things equal except for the CPU/RAM, the athlon rig should be better.

 

[snsd]

Sorry for not keeping it to one thread. (Newbie!) I thought it was a different type of question but will know better next time.

Anyhow, thanks again for the incredibly fast and helpful response. I get so confused. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me that a 2 core 3.0 Ghz PC runs slower than a single core 2.2 Ghz PC. I'm not looking for a detailed explanation; I'm just glad I asked because if I hadn't, I probably would have kept the Pentium D!

Dave

 

[Markfw]

Well, its a different question, but the two could have been mixed. Noobie stuff is how you learn ! And Pentium D's are the scourge of the CPU world (IMO)

NOT a problem, enjoy the forums !

 

[MarcVenice]

Wait, I misread, I thought the athlon was a dualcore ... My mistake. I think the pentium might actually be faster in dualthreaded applications, but slower in single threaded apps. When multitasking the pentium will probably feel snappier... Just use this to compare them: http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

 

[snsd]

OK. That makes a little more sense. Real newbie question: what is a "single" versus a "dual" threaded app?

Dave

 

[MarcVenice]

It basicaly means wether a application can utilize or make use of just 1 core, or more then 1 core. Some applications/games can make use of multiple cores, sometimes even up to 4, and some can't. Clockspeed wise the athlon 3500+ is a little faster then the Pentium 925, but the Pentium 925 has 2 cores, and applications that can use 2 cores, will thus perform better on the Pentium.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
It basicaly means wether a application can utilize or make use of just 1 core, or more then 1 core. Some applications/games can make use of multiple cores, sometimes even up to 4, and some can't. Clockspeed wise the athlon 3500+ is a little faster then the Pentium 925, but the Pentium 925 has 2 cores, and applications that can use 2 cores, will thus perform better on the Pentium.

I agree if he is using multi-threaded apps. His other computer (the E2140) would probably be used for those. This one is just for surfing as I understand it. He doesn;t need all that heat, but... Maybe he does !

 

[bryanW1995]

In my mind the two cores a big plus for the pentium d, but that thing is a major space heater...

 

[snsd]

The Tom's Hardware link was really helpful. If I'm primarily running MS Office 2003, Quickbooks 2007, Firefox... i.e. business applications, are those apps multi or single threaded? Is there a reference site that would be able to give me such info? Thanks. Dave

 

[soccerballtux]

If you're running Vista I'd go with the Pentium D. I had an overclocked Sempron 3100+ at 2.3 Ghz (a little more than a 3300+ Athlon64) and it was lickety split fast in XP for browsing and word processing and doing millions of things at a time (I multitasked a bunch-- say burning a DVD, downloading stuff with Azureus Bittorrent, 5 windows open with different PDFs in them, web-browsing, IM'ing, and writing a paper all at once.) But trying to do that in Vista...it was just slow; partly due to the compositing (that 3d aero graphics stuff) and also I think because everything was rewritten and all the security made it slower.

If you're going to be on XP I'd take that Athlon64 hands down and get 512MB more ram for a total of 1.5GB (the jump from 1.0GB to 1.5GB was as noticeable for me as the jump from 512MB way back when, to 1GB.)

If you're going to be in Vista I'd go with the Pentium D (but only if you're not paying the electricity bills) due to things like the Windows Task Manager in Vista no longer being top priority like it was in XP, so having a second core is nice. Why Microsoft did this is beyond me, because the time when having the Task Manager is most important is the time when another task is locked up trying to hog all the CPU.

Plus I wouldn't go with the Vista, configuring it is a pain (changing network settings requires 3x as many click throughs as XP).

 

[snsd]

Thanks again! The Gateway has XP MCE so I wouldn't be changing that. The Dell has Vista. So, looks like the Gateway is the way to go as I haven't heard that much good about Vista. BTW, everyone's talking about how much power the Pentium D uses. Is it really that much that it would affect the electricity bill or is that "tongue in cheek"!!!

Dave

 

[bryanW1995]

put both computers in the same room. run one of them for 24 hrs and test the room temp, then do the same with the other computer. The athlon runs MUCH cooler than a single core of the pentium D would run, but you have TWO cores on the pentium D so the difference is greatly increased.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
put both computers in the same room. run one of them for 24 hrs and test the room temp, then do the same with the other computer. The athlon runs MUCH cooler than a single core of the pentium D would run, but you have TWO cores on the pentium D so the difference is greatly increased.

yes.

Lots of power.

Would probably add up to about $100/year.

 

[snsd]

Wow. No question now. It's the AMD for me. Thanks for all the help. You've all saved me a ton of money, headaches....
Dave