P4 3Ghz Northwood vs. Pent D 820 2.8Ghz

[shuttleboi]

Dell is having a promotion where they are packaging their 2405 LCD with a Dimension 9150 desktop. I would like to get in on this offer, but I don't know if it would be worth getting the desktop considering my current one.

I have a self-built box from 2004 with a P4 3.0Ghz Northwood on an Asus P4P800 mobo. The Dimension 9150 has a dual-core Pentium D 820 at 2.8Ghz (or 3.0 Ghz 830 for more $$). Most of the websites (e.g. Tom's Hardware) say that the 820 and 830 are slower at games (as most games are single threaded). Any opinions on whether I should upgrade to this machine? I do largely FPS games, Photoshop, and web browsing.

 

[professor1942]

insert default 'AMD64 is much better' statement here

 

[Madwand1]

AMD owns gaming. IMO, it makes no sense to buy a processor that performs relatively poorly just because a vendor finds it more profitable to focus on one processor brand.

Will it make a huge difference in the end? Possibly not, because graphics typically matter as much or more in gaming than the processor / RAM, but you should try to get away from the thinking that you're getting a great deal here when you're getting a second-class processor for this application.