Duron vs. tbird?

[excelon]

Pros, cons? Duron good for gaming?
I'm interested in upgrading and dont know which to get.

Brent

 

[Rigoletto]

...duh...use the search facility.
Get a Duron, no question about it. At modern CPU speeds (shite Celeron and Cyrix excepted) CPU won't be a big factor in getting enough game performance. And if you get a Duron, you first save a lot of money, and then you get the freedom to overclock it massively without worrying about frying an expensive processor. E.g. if you overclock a 700 to a 1000, you're going to get better performance than an 850-900 Tbird.🙂

 

[excelon]

Thanks, that clears it up then!

 

[jpprod]

If you can afford it, by all means, go for the highest-clocked Tbird your budget allows you. If money is a concern, go for the fastest Duron you can afford. Duron is really on-par with Tbird in all practical gaming uses because video card is the limiting factor in most situations. Comparing Duron against a Tbird:

+ better price to performance ratio, no doubt.
+ even the slowest 600MHz Duron unoverclocked is fast enough for almost any normal use. Todays CPUs are overkill for gaming.
- ~10% slower than equally clocked Tbird.
- can't overclock as high. Not many Durons make it over 1GHz, but most 900MHz copper Tbirds seem to hit at least around 1.1GHz with sufficient cooling

Choice is yours. I'd pick up a Tbird in the 900MHz-1GHz range, and not overclock it, but that's just me 🙂

 

[Rigoletto]

JPPROD thou art a heretic.
And no fun neither!:Q

 

[TheCorm]

T/birds aren't that expensive anymore, one running at around 900mhz can be bought over here for £160 so even that won't break the bank.

A Duron is perfectly fine though, Duron 750mhz can match equally clocked T/bird in office applications and nearly match T/bird 700mhz in Gaming so it would still be good all round