Pentium D or Single core Athlon 64?

[slackerinabox]

I know the X2 are amazing chips but I can't currently afford one... The lowest end Pentium D (dual core) is in my budget, ditto with the single core Athlon 64. Which would you with?

I don't do a lot of gaming but I plan on editing HD video footage and do a lot of encoding, plus I want daily operations (web browsing, working in Quark, etc.) to be spiffy.

Thanks!

 

[stevty2889]

Well dual cores will help alot wtih video encoding/editing and what not depending on what programs you use. Just keep in mind the low end pentium-d's will be slower at non-smp aware applications than the single core A64, but will give a nice boost for SMP aware programs. Not to mention the heat generated by the 8xx series pentium-d's is rediculous.

 

[videopho]

Athlon 64...Nice, cool and cheap.

 

[n7]

Cheap Pentium D would be best for that kinda work.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: freedomsbeat212
I know the X2 are amazing chips but I can't currently afford one... The lowest end Pentium D (dual core) is in my budget, ditto with the single core Athlon 64. Which would you with?

I don't do a lot of gaming but I plan on editing HD video footage and do a lot of encoding, plus I want daily operations (web browsing, working in Quark, etc.) to be spiffy.

Thanks!

Get the dual core but be smarter then 1/2 the ppl here when buying dual cores and wanting "spiffy"...You should get 2 HDDs....Mulitasking will be tough when both applications need to access the only drive...IO limitations have smacked quite a few ppl upside the head as they whine about dual cores and lagging....

I suggest getting 2 SATA drives so they dont have to share channels and then place your DVD drive or drives as a master on the 2 IDE channels...

 

[hans007]

i dont think you necessarily need 2 hard drives if you multitask.

make sure you have a sata drive that suppports ncq, it is supposed to make a difference in heavy multitasking.

for what you do you probably are better served by a 805 or 820 chip. i have seen 820 chips on ebay for under $140 buy it now + like $10-12 shipping.

and 805 retail box is about $125 at most stores.

the 805/820 arent going to blow the doors off anything gaming wise, but obviously you'll still be able to game. probably would still be 80% as fast as say an athlon 64 3500+ in single threaded games for the 820. same for the 805 and 3200+ . i think that is about the right price range. boards in general cost about the same i would say.

 

[dguy6789]

I went from a 2.7Ghz Athlon 64 single core system to a Pentium D 820 that I currently have not overclocked at all. The Intel just wipes the floor with it in all kinds of things. In games, there is no difference between the two systems as I am never running at settings low enough for the game to be cpu limited in the first place, so that is not an issue.

There is nothing like being able to burn a dvd and play a game at the same time, or install a game and play a game at the same time. I can encode a large media file and play a game with no problems at all. Desktop use in general is so much smoother. I can open all kinds of apps and they just snap even if the machine is doing something intensive. Photoshop and other SMP enabled applications run very well.

Even with the stock heat sink, heat is not an issue as I am apparently one of the few who knows that it is important to have Arctic Silver 5 and plenty of case air flow.