Is there a significant performance difference between Duron 600@900Mhz and a TB 900?

[NormanTheCow]

I am thinking about buying a new cpu but don't want to spend the extra money if i don't need to. I saw at PCToyz that they sell overclocked duron at 900MHz for only 40 bux and I am very tempted to buy it just because it's sooo cheap. I was originally thinking about getting a TB 1GHz or 900MHz but that costs like 4 times as much. I use the computer to do typical college student stuff...like a programming, word, halflife, starcraft, photoshop...things like that. So can anyone tell me if there will be a noticible difference between Duron 600@900Mhz and a TB 900?

Thanks in advance!

 

[hungrypete]

the TB does have more muscle, but for gaming and other typical college stuff the duron is plenty fast. Make sure you don't go cheap on the motherboard though, whichever route you take.

 

[NormanTheCow]

^bump

 

[pillage2001]

You'll see the difference in speed ifyou're using it for editting graphics or video. It's due to the larger L2 Cache. Besides that, everything is about the same. 🙂

 

[Dan]

hungrypete is right. If I had to quantify it I believe you'd would see a performance gain of approximately 10% on some benchmarks. If I were you I'd go for a 700MHz Duron and spend some of the money you save for quality (as opposed to generic) RAM and a good HSF. You'll overclock to 1GHz and thereby outperform the 900MHz T-Bird.