Centrino Duo and Intel C2D

[Slamman Sr.]

I got a Pentium D motherboard Dell to start with, a GX280, then I bought two other 775 socket T motherboards over the holiday. Both are Core2Duo and Quad compatible but run an old single Intel P4, 3.2Ghz. 3.6 is the top speed single core, but hard to find still. The 3.2 has HyperThread so it shows up in the Device Manager as two identical cores of the same speed.

This can be confusing, as is Pentium D related to actual Dual Cores. The Centrino meaning the Intel CPU and GPU are shared in the architecture.
I am looking for help as a layman consumer to better understand the reasons why there is so much difference for the CPUs going to a 775 type board, which is now considered out-dated already! <G>

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't know where Centrino fits into this, as Centrino is not a CPU, it's a branding that Intel allows companies to apply to computers (laptops), that have: 1) an Intel CPU inside, and 2) an Intel wireless card. Maybe something else too, I forget. I don't think it applies to Celeron CPUs either.

There is a range of CPUs that were made in the 775 LGA form-factor.

There were some higher-end Pentium 4 chips, and then the dual-core Pentium D chips (two Pentium 4 chips in a package), and then the Core2Duo 65nm (Conroe) chips, and then later the Core2Quad chips. Then the Core2Duo 45nm (Wolfdale), and then Core2Quad 45nm.

There were also various Celeron chips, the Celeron D (single-core, P4 architecture), and the Celeron 4xx series (65nm C2D architecture), and then the Celeron E1xxx and E3xxx (C2D dual-core architecture).

 

[adlep]

I think that you best bet for upgrade success is to try to upgrade this PC with 800MHZ fsb based E4xxx cpu. It also uses 65nm manufacturing process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors#.22Allendale.22_.2865_nm.29

If this rev. of GX280 does support C2D CPUs, this is a safe bet due to low fsb/original manufacturing process for C2Ds