Dual core on a budget! Who needs AMD?

[RussianSensation]

Although it would have been great to have a more in-depth review, these benches still show Intel can be a good choice for a person on a budget who wants dual core:

Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz vs AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz

Although P-D loses by roughly 2-13% (besides DVD Shrink) to A64, you can get P-D 805, a motherboard and 1 gig of ram for the price of X2 3800+. Now that's bang for the buck to hold people over until Conroe. Not to mention the ram you'd get is DDR2 which can be reused and there is a possibility that the motherboard will support Conroe if you buy one at this time.

 

[Lonyo]

PD might be noisier and hotter though.
Might = will. Which could affect some users choices (especially if they plan to buy NOW for use ver the Summer until Conroe/AM2 are released....)

 

[stevty2889]

Hmm, wonder what they were actualy using for cooling. Temps are a bit lower than expected since my 805 hits 57c under load at 3.7ghz on water cooling. As for the motherboards they used supporting Conroe, it's very very unlikely current NF4 chipset boards will support Conroe. 3.9ghz is still pretty good for a $135 dual core, wish I could get mine stable there, but it's unstable past 3.7ghz @1.465v. I tried higher vcores but still not stable past 3.7ghz.

 

[Markfw]

They had a ninja scyth 1000 on the 805, and only a 9500 on the X2. I think they should have used the same hsf. Also, they used 1.475vcore on th 805, but only 1.4v on the X2. That is crap also. I did notice that motherboard is only $100, so if I get bored, I could try to get one, but stevty has both, so lets see what he comes up with later. Also, as you see stevty can;t get his stable past 3.7 even with watercooling !

I still say the X2@2.5-2.6 is the best way to go.

 

[stevty2889]

1.475v isn't actualy all that bad for a Prescott based core to hit 3.9ghz, I needed 1.525v to get my 550 3.4ghz P4 to 3.82ghz, and smithfield is 2 5xx series cores stuck together. Their 805 temps are lower than normal especialy for air, their X2 temps are higher than normal, mine doesn't go past 51c on the stock heatsink with stock thermal pad @2.618ghz. But the 805 is still better than the A0 8xx series cores. More looking forward to getting a core duo to play with in a couple weeks when the motherboards are actualy in stock. $99 motherboard + $150 core duo(which is normaly ~$300) that may (or may not) overclock to the same levels as my X2.

 

[Duvie]

I say they didn't try very hard...X2's have been hitting 2.5ghz since last year...now with that kind of voltage 2.7 is more of a possibility....

805 is a great deal for bang of the buck and OCers only...without ocing it is as slow as cpus I have had 2-3 years ago....With ocing it is formidable, but the heat it puts out is far too much for me....

 

[FelixDeCat]

This was an impressive article. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Zim]

The 805D is good value, but you will be paying for it in your electricity bills. Mind you, your heating bills should go down a bit.

 

[Avalon]

The best part about the PD 805 is that there are a couple auctions on eBay that ended very close to $100 shipped for this chip. That's Sempron price range right there :Q

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: Zim
The 805D is good value, but you will be paying for it in your electricity bills. Mind you, your heating bills should go down a bit.

Good for Canadiens, eh?

 

[MDme]

it would also be important to remember that the 805 when overclocked that much may throttle and thus you may not get your 3.9Ghz at all times. It is good bang for the buck though.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: ariafrost

Originally posted by: Zim
The 805D is good value, but you will be paying for it in your electricity bills. Mind you, your heating bills should go down a bit.

Good for Canadiens, eh?

Only if melting the roof over our head is the goal!!

 

[BrownTown]

the point isn't that it will beat on overclocked X2, the point is that its good enough for whatever you could possibly want it for, and it is dirt cheap. You can get a 150$ chip that will give you maybe 3 FPS less in real world situations than the 1000$ CPUs...

 

[Zim]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
the point isn't that it will beat on overclocked X2, the point is that its good enough for whatever you could possibly want it for, and it is dirt cheap. You can get a 150$ chip that will give you maybe 3 FPS less in real world situations than the 1000$ CPUs...

Doesn't FPS mostly depend on your video card?

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
the point isn't that it will beat on overclocked X2, the point is that its good enough for whatever you could possibly want it for, and it is dirt cheap. You can get a 150$ chip that will give you maybe 3 FPS less in real world situations than the 1000$ CPUs...

But in this comparison, AMD's chip is a $290 CPU, not a $1000 CPU.
I agree though...this thing is dirt cheap and can be made impressive.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
the point isn't that it will beat on overclocked X2, the point is that its good enough for whatever you could possibly want it for, and it is dirt cheap. You can get a 150$ chip that will give you maybe 3 FPS less in real world situations than the 1000$ CPUs...

I don't care about the fps, I care what it cost to own in the longrun, and it a LOT !

 

[dmens]

LOL mark, still talking about electricity bills? For a guy who makes "10 times more than me all humor aside", you shouldn't care about a measly $80-$100 a year of full-blown usage 24/7, and hardly anyone does that. But just to go through your usage model, at that rate it'd take about 1.5 to 2 years for the operating cost difference to match up to the CPU cost difference, and it'd be time to upgrade already, since you are rich, HAHAHA. So much for costing a lot.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Paying more for less performance never makes sense. Budget CPUs should chew up less power, period.

I owned an old Thunderbird 1.4 ghz for years before I bought this machine. I got it 'cuz it was cheap at the time. That chip was actually fairly tame in terms of overall power consumption (think it was 73.5W or something of actual power consumption), but damn that thing was hot. Waves of heat poured out from my sideless case. It was uncomfortable, and a little scary when the chip pushed 74C (which it did a few times). I kept the AC low to reduce electrical bills, but let me tell you, using that system caused much suffering in the summer.

From what I've heard, Smithfields may actually be pouring out even more heat than my old space heater, and that's scary. You combine that with the high power consumption of the chip, especially when overclocked, and you've got a budget CPU that's expensive and uncomfortable to own.

I, for one, will never buy an inelegant fireball of a CPU again.

 

[RussianSensation]

Good points about power consumption. I haven't really cared for that since I either live in residences at university or apartments with utilities included. I can understand people's concern long term. The article does compare long term costs though and it seems it takes fairly long for normal usage when the prices match. Also the power consumption for that intel cpu over amd at most will be 100W more which is 1 light bulb. I hardly see anyone complaining about having 1 more lightbulb turned on in their home, am I wrong?

Certainly the same argument is not being made in video forums for why people should choose 7900GTX over X1900XTX. And Markfw900 isn't you caring for long term costs contradicts your RX-8 purchase? It gets what like 17mpg in city and needs refilling of 4 quarts of oil every 2 weeks? Imo It's negligible to compare electricity bills for 1 PC system (not 10) over the course of 2 years (how long ppl on anantech keep systems). And I am not so sure if AMD cost $130 and was smoking intel that cost $295, the same argument would have been made against amd had its power consumption been higher than intel.

 

[Markfw]

The RX-8 is my FUN car, not my commute car, that gets 42 mpg. And it requires 1/2 quart or oil every 3000 miles.

And power consumption is bad, but the worst problem is the HEAT, especially in the summer, and the AC just runs and runs... It puts out WAY more heat than a 100w bulb. Besides, all mine light have been replaced with fluorescent (SP) that take 15 watts and put out virtually no heat.

 

[darkdemyze]

Originally posted by: FelixDeKat
This was an impressive article. Thanks for posting it.

Impressive indeed. I'm supprised such a low-cost cpu could OC that much: nice.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Good points about power consumption. I haven't really cared for that since I either live in residences at university or apartments with utilities included. I can understand people's concern long term. The article does compare long term costs though and it seems it takes fairly long for normal usage when the prices match. Also the power consumption for that intel cpu over amd at most will be 100W more which is 1 light bulb. I hardly see anyone complaining about having 1 more lightbulb turned on in their home, am I wrong?

Certainly the same argument is not being made in video forums for why people should choose 7900GTX over X1900XTX. And Markfw900 isn't you caring for long term costs contradicts your RX-8 purchase? It gets what like 17mpg in city and needs refilling of 4 quarts of oil every 2 weeks? Imo It's negligible to compare electricity bills for 1 PC system (not 10) over the course of 2 years (how long ppl on anantech keep systems). And I am not so sure if AMD cost $130 and was smoking intel that cost $295, the same argument would have been made against amd had its power consumption been higher than intel.

There's a few other things to consider as well...

1. While it hasn't been proven scientifically (no study done to my knowledge), the hotter a chip runs internally, the shorter it's lifespan.
2. While the chip may be clocked high enough according to it's settings, throttling will kick in often (unless you're water cooling), and it should get worse over a period of a few months.
3. He added a $50 HSF and $7.50 case fan to the 805 (while stating that the included HSF was fine for the AMD). So we need to add another $57.50 to the price of the 805. This makes it closer to $190 vs $295...
4. He didn't state what the ambient temps were, but I don't imagine that he did it on a warm spring day without A/C...
5. For a truly budget system, you'll want good on-board graphics. For AMD, the 6100 line of mobos include a Vista ready DX-9 GeForce 6100...and the Radeon Express 200 include a good Vista Ready graphics solution as well (either are ~$60 each). The Radeon line is available for Intel, but NOT for dual core Intel...so let's add another $40 for a seperate video card. Now we're at $230 vs $295

So, by saving ~$65, you are:
1. risking a dead CPU from overclocking
2. adding the headache of monitoring the ambient and chip temerature constantly
3. probably lose your CPU sooner
4. performing 2-14% slower in all real-world tests except DVD shrink...
5. using almost twice the power

 

[imported_Questar]

1. While it hasn't been proven scientifically (no study done to my knowledge), the hotter a chip runs internally, the shorter it's lifespan.

False. Chips don't "wear out".

2. While the chip may be clocked high enough according to it's settings, throttling will kick in often (unless you're water cooling), and it should get worse over a period of a few months.

False. People are running these at 3.9Ghz without throttling on air. It will not "get worse" over time.

The above invalidates you entire argument. Quit making stuff up.

 

[dexvx]

You people realize that Fry's has the Pentium-D 920 + Mobo combo for $199?

The "save on power" arguement is stupid, IMO. Even on 24/7 load, you'd need over 3 years to make up the difference in initial cost. If people were that anal over power, they'd get Core Duo solutions to all their problems.

5. For a truly budget system, you'll want good on-board graphics. For AMD, the 6100 line of mobos include a Vista ready DX-9 GeForce 6100...and the Radeon Express 200 include a good Vista Ready graphics solution as well (either are ~$60 each). The Radeon line is available for Intel, but NOT for dual core Intel...so let's add another $40 for a seperate video card. Now we're at $230 vs $295

The 950GMA is a Vista Ready graphics solution. With a decent amount of memory allocation, you can run Vista @ Aero fine.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: Questar

1. While it hasn't been proven scientifically (no study done to my knowledge), the hotter a chip runs internally, the shorter it's lifespan.

False. Chips don't "wear out".

2. While the chip may be clocked high enough according to it's settings, throttling will kick in often (unless you're water cooling), and it should get worse over a period of a few months.

False. People are running these at 3.9Ghz without throttling on air. It will not "get worse" over time.

The above invalidates you entire argument. Quit making stuff up.

Everything wears out. I hereby invalidate your entire "argument."

EDIT: I also invalidate YOU.