Athlon64 3200+ vs Pentium D 3.4 GHz

M

Main Target

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 5, 2004
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I'm just curious which would be better. I was given the Pentium D mobo/processor so i wanted to see if it was worth an upgrade.

I guess its worth mentioning if i go to the Pentium D, i would also be going up to PCIX with a 7900GS instead of a 6800nu.

Also, do i have to run a pentium D with matched sticks of DDR2? If so what speed
 
The Pentium D would be faster. I would do it just for the video card upgrade though. If you're a gamer, moving from a 68** to a 79** would help a lot more than the processor upgrade, although a 3200 is cutting it a little close for gaming. But then I'm one to talk, since I'm gaming on one right now.

Also, with DDR2 prices now, you can get large amounts of memory cheap, which is never a bad thing. About speeds, I'm an AMD guy, so I'm not sure. I wouldn't think you would though.
 
Yeah, 2 matched sticks of 1 gig 667 is only like 30 bucks with free shipping, its crazy
 
This thread makes me feel sad. :Looks at Specs in Sigs:

At least, I'll be upgrading some time soon. I hope.
 
I have to say I would get the 3200+ over the Pentium D. For one it uses less power ergo runs cooler. Also the Pentium D to me performs quite poorly. I have had a Pentium D at 4ghz (http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=110086) with a 7950gx2 and 2gb of ram and it was not able to perform in gaming. Since the 3200+ will run cooler it should be easier to overclock and manage the temps if you feel comfortable doing so. It may have less Hz but that really doesn't matter these days.
 
I would sell the Pentium D/mobo combo on here as well as the 3200+ and pick up a X2 CPU for your current motherboard (if it supports it) you can likely get one from the traders forum here and not be out any money at all after selling the Pentium D combo. You'll also get much better performance.
 
decco said:
I have to say I would get the 3200+ over the Pentium D. For one it uses less power ergo runs cooler. Also the Pentium D to me performs quite poorly. I have had a Pentium D at 4ghz (http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=110086) with a 7950gx2 and 2gb of ram and it was not able to perform in gaming. Since the 3200+ will run cooler it should be easier to overclock and manage the temps if you feel comfortable doing so. It may have less Hz but that really doesn't matter these days.
Click to expand...

Excuse me?
Not able to perfrom in gaming? :rolleyes:

Care to list benchmarks, my GF has a PD 940 (3.2GHz) and it is no slouch in gaming.

Sure you multi-GPU isn't the culprint, SLI bugs are a know fact, and the 7950gx2 was proned to erratic preformance and bad drivers..do read up.
 
Atech said:
Excuse me?
Not able to perfrom in gaming? :rolleyes:

Care to list benchmarks, my GF has a PD 940 (3.2GHz) and it is no slouch in gaming.

Sure you multi-GPU isn't the culprint, SLI bugs are a know fact, and the 7950gx2 was proned to erratic preformance and bad drivers..do read up.
Click to expand...

I'll elaborate my point a bit. The Pentium D did do fairly well in gaming and I could get 7.5k-8.5k points in 3dMark06 at the time. Now with settings maxed out on say DoD:Source I was getting 100+ fps in a corner off to the side but when going into action it would drop to 30-40 fps. Now you might argue that this is because of my video card but it was not. I have since then upgraded to a E6600 and have it running at 400fsb I had a significant fps increase during action sequences. So I had plenty of muscle for video, just lacking in CPU. My 3dMark06 scores also jumped to the 10k-11k range as well. Now you might or might not be overclocking but the Pentium D will draw significantly more power than the AMD will. Mine at 4ghz would draw close to if not more than 200w and ran hotter than the sun. Even when not overclocking the D took at least 115w and was still fairly hot.

I am going to say though even though it goes against what I said earlier, go ahead and get the Pentium D but only because it is dual core. RamonGTP has a good point as well as to selling both and getting the X2.
 
Krycek1 said:
This thread makes me feel sad. :Looks at Specs in Sigs:

At least, I'll be upgrading some time soon. I hope.
Click to expand...
:D Oh boy, any significant upgrade you do is going to be a lot of parts from an AGP/DDR1 based system.

I can understand part of it since I have 2 S939 systems I'm having a hard time getting rid of.
 
decco, I think in the age of multithreaded gaming a Pentium D owns a single core A64, even though its total crap compared to current dual core offerings. Most of the latest games require a dual core chip to run well, and a slow dual core is still a lot better than a fast single core.
 
Hey, stay on track here.

Anyways, im thinking just the upgrade of video card, and probably another gig of ram will definitely help me see an upgrade.

As far as the comment to sell everything, my current mobo only supports AGP :-(
 
pxc said:
:D Oh boy, any significant upgrade you do is going to be a lot of parts from an AGP/DDR1 based system.

I can understand part of it since I have 2 S939 systems I'm having a hard time getting rid of.
Click to expand...

Actually, may as well call it a new system :)
 
decco said:
Now you might or might not be overclocking but the Pentium D will draw significantly more power than the AMD will. Mine at 4ghz would draw close to if not more than 200w and ran hotter than the sun. Even when not overclocking the D took at least 115w and was still fairly hot.
Click to expand...

Another thing to remember is you had the lowest binned Smithfield available, versus a 65nm Presler, which ran cooler then the 90nm Smithfields. Presler cores also have twice the cache of Smithfields and according to Anand, perform up to 6% better in gaming clock for clock.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2658&p=13
 
Main Target said:
Hey, stay on track here.

Anyways, im thinking just the upgrade of video card, and probably another gig of ram will definitely help me see an upgrade.

As far as the comment to sell everything, my current mobo only supports AGP :-(
Click to expand...

Well considering you were given the PD might as well make use of it. They do make a 3850 for agp which has enabled me to pump some life into my old AXP rig myself.

As far as the 3200+ versus the PD its a toss up really. If you OC'd them then the 3200+ gets stronger since it has greater overhead but at stock its six of one half a dozen of the other
 
I've owned both chips in systems.

I was always somewhat depressed by the performance of the Pentium D 2.8. I assume that most of the apps/games I was running at the time were not mult-threaded..... but at any rate, in comparing the two the PD always seemed kinda ..... slouchy.

You could definately tell a difference just fartin around in Windows..... felt like the difference between a celeron and a P3 back in the day.
 
I still use a A64 3200. I run a EVGA 7900gs ko with it, 2 gb ram

Some games it runs wide open at 1400x900
LOTRO
FEAR
DOOM3
Quake 4
BF2
Guild Wars
CS source
Runescape :)

Plays COD 4 very respectable, enough for me to play all the way through
Spore is fine to.

I bought Quake wars last night on clearance for 12$ at walmart. It chugs pretty bad but the game was horrible so i felt better.
 
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