i am thinking of upgrading my computer, is the pentium D 820, more powerfull and better for gaming than the AMD-64 3500+? i seen somewere that pentium d's are a match for the X2 processor's from AMD. so i am unsure if i should switch to AMD :\.
Personally I wouldn't spend the extra moeny on buying an X2 for a small performance gain. The Pentium Ds are very good in dual core, although not quite as nippy as the Athlon64s X2s. Benchmarks here: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050509/cual_core_athlon-14.html
The 3500 will comfortably outperform the 820 in games. Dual core is nice but if gaming is your main concern then forget it as it won't help for awhile and unless you have a lot of intensive apps going you won't really need the extra core. Spend the money on more ram.
Yep, Totally off topic! Next time, please take this up over PM On topic - I agree with EX and Addis, X2 would be overkill really. I nice Venice Core would to nicely
what about getting a combo board that has 1 skt 478 slot and 1 skt 775 slot, then i would be able to keep my surrent pentium 4 for socket 478 and then just buy a new 64-bit pentium 4 processor for the skt 775 slot eh?
Yeah i suppose you could do that, but only temporarily really. If you do then get a LGA775 CPU down the track, then the mPGA478 Socket is going to waste, and is taking up valueble space which could be used for extra features. I did find this though http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=BA21330&CartID=done&nextloc= But i'd recommend against this and just go for a single socket motherboard.
For the 3500 you'd need a at least a P4 3.8GHz, not really worth spending that much if gaming is your primary concern. Frankly if gaming is your primary concern forget Intel, they have nice chips but why pay extra for less. Don't bother with a combo socket as soon enough 775 will go out of fashion. If you want my honest opinion wait until next year when the next gen M2 socket comes into play for AMD with DDR2 support and universal compatability. I realize it's not exactly right down the road but it's good to stay current so buying a good mobo only for it to become semi obsolete in a few months isn't the ideal route in my opinon. If you really can't wait get a 3500 and a DFI LP UT or similar.
Most motherboards with 2 different sockets are pretty basic and not made for the performace crowd. Unless video editing is your big thing, you're going to find that the Athlon 64 is a better option in terms of performance. Socket M2 may come out next year, but if it does, you'll see it start off in a higher price and limited availability until production ramps up (but this happens with many products, just check out the progession of Socket 939). If gaming is the main thing, AMD is where it's at. Now, if you wanted to do video editing and game at the same time, the X2 might still be expensive, but the dual-core P4 would be right up your alley.
lol, so intel is were the disco is at right now so, whats so good about this new M2 socket, what do you mean universal compatability, all others sockets are kind of universal are they?
No M2 is a brand new socket for AMD CPUs in the future. I don't believe its universally compatible. Intel and AMD have their strengths and weaknesses. Intel has better video editing/compression performance generally while AMD64 excels in general performance and gaming. The X2 is more expensive, but generally superior to the Pentium Ds because of the more elegant dual core design.
Intel have also dual core, thats the Pentium Ds, which helps in video intensive apps but the AMD X2 chips "harmonize" the cores better. Good for playing a game while doing tasks in the background.
Sorry universal was a major overstatement, when I said that I was refering to the AMD platform only, the idea is that all of AMD's processors are supposed to migrate to the M2 socket so no matter which current one you buy you can just plug and play. It will take a bit of time but that's the plan.
oh, so any skt 775 processor, and skt 939 processor, would both be compatible with the same exact skt? or would you need to buy new processor?
With M2, what Ex is getting at is that instead of having 2 sockets as we do now (although S754 is being phased), budget, mid range and high end enthusiast CPUs will use the same socket.