Intel Pentium 650 3.4GHz vs. Intel Pentium 830 3GHz -- Software Development Environment

nobrainerdeals

Senior member
Oct 13, 2005
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I'd appreciate any thoughts you can give, but I just can't figure out what I want this time. I've never pondered so much over a computer before.

From what I hear, the Pentium D's aren't so great. It looks they only shine when doing video rendering, but I never do that. But I would love to have my computer not lag when multi-tasking. Also, it would be nice to have a Pentium D just for the sake of having it.

On the other hand, it seems that the 3.4 GHz P4's w/HT outperform the Dual-Cores in most tasks...

Which one would you buy? Pentium D 3.0GHz or the P4 3.4GHz?

thanks in advance!
 

stevty2889

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2003
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Have you considered an A64 X2 3800+? While the dual core will help greatly with video rendering, the Intel dual core isn't the best way to go, they run very hot, and perform no where near the A64 dual core. I have a P4, a Pentium-M and an A64 X2. The X2 is by far the smoothest running and most powerful system, and runs cooler than P4's by a long shot. There are a lot of threads on here about people having heat issues with pentium-d's, and how there performance is horrible compared to an X2. Check out this one for example. And here is one comparing X2's, P4's, and Pentium-D's in video encoding.
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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X2
/thread

Unless of course this is some form of spamming or advertizing (see his name and sig?)
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
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I would go with the dual core chip at this point. If you are gaming, AMD seems to be having a few problems here and there with the X2 and games.
 

stevty2889

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2003
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Originally posted by: LTC8K6
I would go with the dual core chip at this point. If you are gaming, AMD seems to be having a few problems here and there with the X2 and games.

Unless of course you download the hotfix from microsoft, since it is indeed a software problem..that seems to have fixed the problems for everyone that was still having them..
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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I am having problems with my 820D. It locked up last night, hard lock. And I have been having problems with it all along !

EVERY SINGLE X2 GAMING PROBLEM I HAVE SEEN HAS BEEN RESOLVED BY THE X2 DRIVER OR THE MS HOTFIX SO SHUT UP ABOUT THOSE PROBLEMS ! YOU ARE PERPETUATING A LIE !
 

stevty2889

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Dec 13, 2003
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Originally posted by: ahock
Hey stevty what do you usually with all that PCs.... Just wondering

My X2 machine is my main rig, for playing games, and video encoding and such.

My Pentium-m machine is for taking to lan parties, since it's in a SFF case, and easy to carry around, and still very fast for games.

My Pentium 4 prescott machine is in my bedroom, with an ATI AIW card, for recording TV shows that I watch, but are one while I'm at work and watching TV in my room. It also literaly heats my room in the winter, so I don't have to turn the heat on in my bedroom.

And I have an old 1.6ghz mobile northwood machine that I let my roomate use..if you think I have a lot of rigs, you should see how many markfw has..
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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up to 13 rigs now. Not updated on my rigs, since it is limited to 10. 4 F@H dedicated, 4 for lan parties, 2 laptops (One is my sons), work rigs and one dinosaur for old games that require sound blaster (200 pentium)
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
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EVERY SINGLE X2 GAMING PROBLEM I HAVE SEEN HAS BEEN RESOLVED BY THE X2 DRIVER OR THE MS HOTFIX SO SHUT UP ABOUT THOSE PROBLEMS ! YOU ARE PERPETUATING A LIE !

Yeah, that reply will help......

 

nobrainerdeals

Senior member
Oct 13, 2005
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thanks for all your inputs...i'm not much of a gamer so i'm not too concerned about that. money is sort of a contraint, don't want to spend like $1000 on a processor alone. I guess if i could wait out til the next wave of processors come out from intel, then the price drop would open up more options for me. anyone know when intels releasing it's next wave of cpus?
 

stevty2889

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2003
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Cedar Mill, Yonah, and Presler should be out around the begining of 2006. But if you see the previews for them..they aren't any better than prescott/smithfield, other than slightly lower power consumption. They perform exactly the same, because all they are are die shrunk prescotts, with the exception of course being Yonah, which will be the dual core mobile chip, and could have some decent potential.
 

anandtechrocks

Senior member
Dec 7, 2004
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Hopefully we will see Intel's new non-Netburst chips (Conroe?) mid to late next year. As much as I enjoy my A64 I would like to see some healthy competetion in the processor sector... I'm tired of hearing the broken record about how much Intel sucks.
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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Originally posted by: nobrainerdeals
thanks for all your inputs...i'm not much of a gamer so i'm not too concerned about that. money is sort of a contraint, don't want to spend like $1000 on a processor alone. I guess if i could wait out til the next wave of processors come out from intel, then the price drop would open up more options for me. anyone know when intels releasing it's next wave of cpus?

Why spend $1000 ? Just get the 3800+x2 at ~$350. It should do what you want faster than what you were looking at, and cooler.
 

fatty4ksu

Golden Member
Mar 5, 2005
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Originally posted by: LTC8K6
I would go with the dual core chip at this point. If you are gaming, AMD seems to be having a few problems here and there with the X2 and games.

QFT
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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Originally posted by: fatty4ksu
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
I would go with the dual core chip at this point. If you are gaming, AMD seems to be having a few problems here and there with the X2 and games.

QFT

Thats a lie ! And there are 3 threads to prove it. fatty, you are headed for ban again.
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
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You may indeed be correct, but threads on Anandtech don't prove anything.

There do indeed seem to be problems here and there with the X2's, despite the fact that they outperform Pentium D's. These problems may indeed be solved. That doesn't mean you don't mention them to prospective buyers as something they may run into.

Why can't people buy what they like?

Why do people have to get a sales pitch or several sales pitches instead of an answer to their question?

 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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The only problem people have had have been solved by either the driver (which they should have installed) or the MS patch. So saying people have had problems is like saying that tires are bad when you didn;t inflate them ! And it also makes the product look bad, when in fact MS or the users lack of knowledge is to blame. This is why I get so upset when people keep saying this. They can buy whatever they like I even bought an 820D, just so I could state from personal experience how good or bad they are. I have almost finished my evaluation, and hope to have Duvie join me tonight to finish.

So if you mention a problem, you need to also mention the solution. Ommission of that makes it a lie or at least very decieving IMO.
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
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It's impossible for me to mention solutions that I am unaware of.

Even in this thread the answer is given as either the driver or the hotfix or both.

That sounds a little bit like the actual problem and solution are not exactly known, but if you do either or both of these, the problem will go away.

Personally, I like to know that someone knows the actual cause and has an exact solution for confidence.
 

PKing1977

Member
Jul 28, 2005
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Originally posted by: LTC8K6
It's impossible for me to mention solutions that I am unaware of.

Even in this thread the answer is given as either the driver or the hotfix or both.

That sounds a little bit like the actual problem and solution are not exactly known, but if you do either or both of these, the problem will go away.

Personally, I like to know that someone knows the actual cause and has an exact solution for confidence.

The threads are there to read about the soloutions to the problems. You sir have your head soooo far up intels... well I wont finish. There is no hardware problem with AMD chips and games. It is a software problem that has been corrected since the chip has been released. Therefore, there is no problem. Unless you have an X2 and are having trouble dont miss inform a poster on something you dont have any clue about.

PKing
 

redhatlinux

Senior member
Oct 6, 2001
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How quickly this thread got off topic, the question was, 'For a Software Development Environment'. A dually should be fine for this type of work. You should be able to compile in one core while testing and coding in the other. There are some early glitches in SP that have patches for duallies but that seems to be related to a single program being dispatched in alternate cores and suffering 'stuttering'
 

Keysplayr

Elite Member
Jan 16, 2003
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Originally posted by: Markfw900
I am having problems with my 820D. It locked up last night, hard lock. And I have been having problems with it all along !

EVERY SINGLE X2 GAMING PROBLEM I HAVE SEEN HAS BEEN RESOLVED BY THE X2 DRIVER OR THE MS HOTFIX SO SHUT UP ABOUT THOSE PROBLEMS ! YOU ARE PERPETUATING A LIE !

Wow... Simmer down now.. ;)

OP: If you are just developing software using multithreaded apps etc.etc. I would go with a dual core 830. Or a 3800 X2. If your a gamer and you really don't need a multicore CPU for your software developement, than a single A64 would do nicely.

 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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check Duvie's incoming input. We spent all evening leaning about throttleing (CPU-Z doesn't show it) The 8xx series is garbage.
 

nobrainerdeals

Senior member
Oct 13, 2005
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thanks redhatlinux for the reiteration. haha.

yea, i would like to compile my apps while i'm doing photoshop or something else without it lagging. from my experience, the P4 w/HT seems pretty good about lag already. I've used a P4 3.0GHz w/HT and there isn't too much lag with multitasking.

looks like i'll be getting a dimension 9100 with a 3.0GHz Pentium D. i don't think i'm ready to cross over the AMD side yet, even though there is so much rave about amd x2's. i've had terrible past experiences.

thanks everyone!
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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Originally posted by: nobrainerdeals
thanks redhatlinux for the reiteration. haha.

yea, i would like to compile my apps while i'm doing photoshop or something else without it lagging. from my experience, the P4 w/HT seems pretty good about lag already. I've used a P4 3.0GHz w/HT and there isn't too much lag with multitasking.

looks like i'll be getting a dimension 9100 with a 3.0GHz Pentium D. i don't think i'm ready to cross over the AMD side yet, even though there is so much rave about amd x2's. i've had terrible past experiences.

thanks everyone!

OK, well after my experiance, lets say you have been warned. The worst actually is the throttleing, and with the best air cooling available I have to leave the case cover off to even get it to not throttle over 3.0 !