which is better 820 or 630?

JWade

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Oct 9, 1999
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Trying to decide which is better for my wife's system. She can have either a 630 or 820 processor. The system will NOT be overclocked. Overall which is the better all around processor.

I am thinking the 630, it has 2mb cache, 200mhz faster, HT. The 820 is dual core, each core with 1mb cache. But i cant think of many apps she runs that would use dual core. She surfs the net a bit, WoW gets played on her system every once in awhile (does WoW benefit from dual core?)

She currently has the 630 in her system, but i may be getting an 820, just trying to decide if i should put it in her system or not or keep her with her 630.
 

stevty2889

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Dec 13, 2003
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Doesn't sound like anything she runs will take advantage of the dual core, so no reason to stick a flamethrower in there when the current chip is more than enough.
 

JWade

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Oct 9, 1999
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is the 820 that much hotter? do you think i may better off getting like a 2.9ghz celeron and selling the 820? Since it is looking more and more like i am getting this chip i am thinking of building another system (again that wont be overclocked). for general use of internet and office type work, light gaming, think a 2.9 celeron would suffice or better off over all with the 820? selling the 820 would reduce the price cost of building the system too.
 

boshuter

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Feb 11, 2003
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I had my 660es in my everyday pc after I got through benching it. I ran it for a few months and just recently replaced it with my 840es. The system is much more responsive with the 840, even with the lower mhz. I run 2 instances of F@H 24/7 and I think the dual core helps with that. Cooling could be an issue, I run a very basic H2O setup with a single 120mm rad, all 3/8" tubing and cool an X850XT PE GPU as well and the temps on the 840 are around 50C with the F@H apps running, surfing the net, playing with Photoshop, whatever (in a fairly warm room). I like the dual core, as I said, the system just seemed "faster" when I pulled the 660 and stuck it in.
 

Markfw

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May 16, 2002
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The 820 is a flamethrower. If you overclock it, even more so.
 

stevty2889

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Dec 13, 2003
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Originally posted by: JWade
is the 820 that much hotter? do you think i may better off getting like a 2.9ghz celeron and selling the 820? Since it is looking more and more like i am getting this chip i am thinking of building another system (again that wont be overclocked). for general use of internet and office type work, light gaming, think a 2.9 celeron would suffice or better off over all with the 820? selling the 820 would reduce the price cost of building the system too.

With the 9xx series available, I don't see why anyone would get an 8xx series anymore(other than the 805 for being rediculously cheap), the 9xx series runs a lot cooler. I would sell the 820 but rather than gettin a Celeron, I would go Sempron instead, runs cooler, generaly faster, and even less expensive than Celeron. But yeah, a dual core is an overkill for the light usage it looks like you'll be doing.
 

JWade

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well the 820 i am getting is for doing some work, i can get a cheap (almost free, just some work involved) 775 barebone system for a 2nd system build so a sempron really isnt an option i dont think
 

boshuter

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Feb 11, 2003
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Originally posted by: stevty2889
Originally posted by: JWade
is the 820 that much hotter? do you think i may better off getting like a 2.9ghz celeron and selling the 820? Since it is looking more and more like i am getting this chip i am thinking of building another system (again that wont be overclocked). for general use of internet and office type work, light gaming, think a 2.9 celeron would suffice or better off over all with the 820? selling the 820 would reduce the price cost of building the system too.

With the 9xx series available, I don't see why anyone would get an 8xx series anymore(other than the 805 for being rediculously cheap), the 9xx series runs a lot cooler. I would sell the 820 but rather than gettin a Celeron, I would go Sempron instead, runs cooler, generaly faster, and even less expensive than Celeron. But yeah, a dual core is an overkill for the light usage it looks like you'll be doing.


I would like to see the results you obtained when you switched from your 8xx to your 9xxx cpu as far as temps. It almost seems to me that you are just posting something you read somewhere. I pulled the 840es out of my bench system and replaced it with a 950es, the 9xx run a LOT hotter and consume a LOT more power than the 8xx's. I ran the 840 with a small capacity water chiller that could keep it at around 17c while benching, the same chiller can't keep the 950 anywher near that temp, after booting at 0c it was running 57c at the end of PCmark05. If you actually did test this, please let me know your results.
 

Markfw

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I personally saw the lower temps, he had the chip at my house, and in my motherboard, and it is cooler.
 

stevty2889

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2003
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Originally posted by: boshuter
Originally posted by: stevty2889
Originally posted by: JWade
is the 820 that much hotter? do you think i may better off getting like a 2.9ghz celeron and selling the 820? Since it is looking more and more like i am getting this chip i am thinking of building another system (again that wont be overclocked). for general use of internet and office type work, light gaming, think a 2.9 celeron would suffice or better off over all with the 820? selling the 820 would reduce the price cost of building the system too.

With the 9xx series available, I don't see why anyone would get an 8xx series anymore(other than the 805 for being rediculously cheap), the 9xx series runs a lot cooler. I would sell the 820 but rather than gettin a Celeron, I would go Sempron instead, runs cooler, generaly faster, and even less expensive than Celeron. But yeah, a dual core is an overkill for the light usage it looks like you'll be doing.


I would like to see the results you obtained when you switched from your 8xx to your 9xxx cpu as far as temps. It almost seems to me that you are just posting something you read somewhere. I pulled the 840es out of my bench system and replaced it with a 950es, the 9xx run a LOT hotter and consume a LOT more power than the 8xx's. I ran the 840 with a small capacity water chiller that could keep it at around 17c while benching, the same chiller can't keep the 950 anywher near that temp, after booting at 0c it was running 57c at the end of PCmark05. If you actually did test this, please let me know your results.


If your 9xx series chips were running hotter and using more power..you had something very wrong going on. I had an 830, have 2 920's, and an 805. The 9xx series definatly runs a lot cooler. Could be teh fact that you are using ES's and mine are retail. But I wasn't hitting much more than 60c load at 3.6ghz with my 920 using the stock cooler..my 830 on the other hand ran at almost 70c with the stock cooler at stock speeds, and dropped to about 65c with a thermaltake jungle 512.