PD 940 -VS- E8400 (need advice)

[Icerider]

PD 940= dual core 3.2, 4mb cache, 800 fsb leaves room for o/c on cheap matx mb.
99 bucks

E8400= dual core 3.0, 6mb cache, 1333 fsb won't leave much fsb oc on a cheapo matx mb (probably an evga 7100 for hdmi and lite gaming)
190 bucks

I have already oced an e8400 on a 780 evga and 4.0g isn't hard to hit but I doubt I can pull those numbers on a sub 100 dollar matx board. I have zero experience and have'nt even heard much on the web about the PD 940. Does anyone have any first hand experience with it?

all advice appreciated

[down8]

Almost any C2D would do better than the PD, so I'd at least aim for that.

-bZj

[RAW-Raptor22]

Im still using my Pentium D 820, I definitely would recommend any P6 over a Netburst anyday. I would love to be able to OC my chip but I need a motherboard that is good...

[prime81]

Not even close... C2D pwns.

[Okda]

an E2180 is better than those Pentium-D

go for the C2D

and from your question i friendly suggest that you tell us the rest fo the pc components you have or going to buy so we can suggest anything better in the same range of budget if possible

[HDCHOPPER]

"D" is great overclocker indeed all my "D" have gotten to 4.0

but net burst for lack of a better term SUCKS the core 2 duo ROCKS ! and the E8400 kicks a$$

gonna put my E8400 (batch#817) in tonight

[Icerider]

Thanks for the quick input guys. I'm basically building a small htpc/gaming rig for the living room out of this. I'm not really a noob at this (currently running a q6600 at 4.1g on an evga 790iU on my own custom built water and an e8400 at 4.3g on an evga 780i with custom water) but like I said, I never even heard of the pd 8x and9x chips, allthough I do have a nice lil' e2180 that clocks like crazy setting around somewhere.

I notice a strong tendency toward a c2d so far from you guys, why? I see that some of you are getting like 4+ all the way to 4.5 out of this hundred dollar chip, that's easily better than alot of the e8400s are doing so does it just not perform well at these speeds compared to a slower c2d or what?

For saFrOut, I plan on dropping a chip of some sort in an evga 7100/630i with 2g of 800/c4 Crucial and an 8800 GS 384mb in an Ultra microfly case with a tv tuner for some 1080p tv and gaming for my kids. The thing doesn't have to scream but I would like reasonably good performance out of it, which I know that MB and gpu can do with a decent cpu.

[inCore]

It's just not a fair competition, the Pentium D series are simply outdated by today's standards. You will be much better off with an E8400. As far as I remember, the Pentium D's get quite warm and you want your HTPC to be nice and cool and quiet. I would actually say that your E2180 would be the perfect CPU for your HTPC, but that's another matter.

[RAW-Raptor22]

It's just not a fair competition, the Pentium D series are simply outdated by today's standards. You will be much better off with an E8400. As far as I remember, the Pentium D's get quite warm and you want your HTPC to be nice and cool and quiet. I would actually say that your E2180 would be the perfect CPU for your HTPC, but that's another matter.

My PC runs Crysis @ 1600x1200 with 4xAA with the Luxus Silentium texture mods very smooth. Using a Zalman 9700 CPU cooler, and Zalman STG1 thermal paste my CPU runs @ 28C idle and 38C load, better than most P6 Dual Cores. I understand that it is really only to Prescotts smashed together but it really isnt a bad CPU for what I use it for. I would still recommend a P6 Dual Core over the Pentium D series.

A little history lesson: The 90nm Pentium D 820 (my CPU) was the first consumer Dual Core on the market and was released in April 2005. Intel later released the 830 and the 840 clocked at 3.0 and 3.2GHz respectfully. They later released the 65nm Pentium D 920 (and others 915-965) that featured twice the L2 cache of the previous series and was a serious threat to the AMD dominance. Pentium D Extreme Editions were the performance king until Intel brought back P6 with the C2D series.

[bt_medic04]

the netburst architecture was built for higher frequencies at the cost of IPC. initially it had a 20 stage pipeline, which was later increased to 31 stages with the prescott. thats fine and dandy if your making a processor thats to scale to 5-10ghz, unfortunately intel had one oversight on this architecture and that was heat output. while netburst reached new heights with frequencies during the GHZ wars, it was also reaching uncontrollable levels of heat dissipation. intel finally realized something had to be done to get things under control and hence that magical architecture known as conroe was born.

conroe is based off of dothan (aka the pentium m of mobile origin) which in itself is based off of the pentium 3 and its P6 architecture (the same one thats been around since the advent of the original pentium pro) what the engineers at intel did was take the P6, made it much wider and paired it with a 14 stage pipeline meaning it does much much more work per cycle than any netburst based chip has ever done. add in modern day instructions and a shared L2 and you have the recipe for the core 2 duo (in simplified terms of course ) conroe also managed to finally remedy that one oversight that plagued netburst, and that was heat output. conroe and its descendants dont need to have as high a frequency to achieve superior levels of performance due to the shorter 14 stage pipeline and the wider is better approach.

so what it all comes down to is what can your motherboards chipset support? if its an older 945/955x your pretty much limited to netburst. however if you have anything later than the P965, theres no point in investing in the netburst architecture. its dead jim, plain and simple. if your not liking the idea of spending $190 on an E8400, have you looked at the new E7200? $130 gets you the goodies (sans vt i believe) wolfdale has to offer and is much easier on the bank account balance.

[RAW-Raptor22]

the netburst architecture was built for higher frequencies at the cost of IPC. initially it had a 20 stage pipeline, which was later increased to 31 stages with the prescott. thats fine and dandy if your making a processor thats to scale to 5-10ghz, unfortunately intel had one oversight on this architecture and that was heat output. while netburst reached new heights with frequencies during the GHZ wars, it was also reaching uncontrollable levels of heat dissipation. intel finally realized something had to be done to get things under control and hence that magical architecture known as conroe was born.

conroe is based off of dothan (aka the pentium m of mobile origin) which in itself is based off of the pentium 3 and its P6 architecture (the same one thats been around since the advent of the original pentium pro) what the engineers at intel did was take the P6, made it much wider and paired it with a 14 stage pipeline meaning it does much much more work per cycle than any netburst based chip has ever done. add in modern day instructions and a shared L2 and you have the recipe for the core 2 duo (in simplified terms of course ) conroe also managed to finally remedy that one oversight that plagued netburst, and that was heat output. conroe and its descendants dont need to have as high a frequency to achieve superior levels of performance due to the shorter 14 stage pipeline and the wider is better approach.

so what it all comes down to is what can your motherboards chipset support? if its an older 945/955x your pretty much limited to netburst. however if you have anything later than the P965, theres no point in investing in the netburst architecture. its dead jim, plain and simple. if your not liking the idea of spending $190 on an E8400, have you looked at the new E7200? $130 gets you the goodies (sans vt i believe) wolfdale has to offer and is much easier on the bank account balance.

The newest bios flash of my 945 board makes it compatible with C2D and maybe even C2Q (must check).

[bt_medic04]

The newest bios flash of my 945 board makes it compatible with C2D and maybe even C2Q (must check).

very true. its not to say that your motherboard manufacturer wont release a bios that adds support for a core 2 duo/core 2 quad so long as the board itself meets the voltage requirements. its just not "officially" supported by intel.

[RAW-Raptor22]

very true. its not to say that your motherboard manufacturer wont release a bios that adds support for a core 2 duo/core 2 quad so long as the board itself meets the voltage requirements. its just not "officially" supported by intel.

Right, P35+ were supposed to be the only boards that support 1333MHz FSB but quite obviously P965 and some 975X boards work too.

[Icerider]

the netburst architecture was built for higher frequencies at the cost of IPC. initially it had a 20 stage pipeline, which was later increased to 31 stages with the prescott. thats fine and dandy if your making a processor thats to scale to 5-10ghz, unfortunately intel had one oversight on this architecture and that was heat output. while netburst reached new heights with frequencies during the GHZ wars, it was also reaching uncontrollable levels of heat dissipation. intel finally realized something had to be done to get things under control and hence that magical architecture known as conroe was born.

conroe is based off of dothan (aka the pentium m of mobile origin) which in itself is based off of the pentium 3 and its P6 architecture (the same one thats been around since the advent of the original pentium pro) what the engineers at intel did was take the P6, made it much wider and paired it with a 14 stage pipeline meaning it does much much more work per cycle than any netburst based chip has ever done. add in modern day instructions and a shared L2 and you have the recipe for the core 2 duo (in simplified terms of course ) conroe also managed to finally remedy that one oversight that plagued netburst, and that was heat output. conroe and its descendants dont need to have as high a frequency to achieve superior levels of performance due to the shorter 14 stage pipeline and the wider is better approach.

so what it all comes down to is what can your motherboards chipset support? if its an older 945/955x your pretty much limited to netburst. however if you have anything later than the P965, theres no point in investing in the netburst architecture. its dead jim, plain and simple. if your not liking the idea of spending $190 on an E8400, have you looked at the new E7200? $130 gets you the goodies (sans vt i believe) wolfdale has to offer and is much easier on the bank account balance.

This was the post I was hoping for, thanks a ton. I'm really getting heavily into the o/c and mod scene but I am weak on the architectural points of the different generations of chips. This was a big help on my choice

[bt_medic04]

This was the post I was hoping for, thanks a ton. I'm really getting heavily into the o/c and mod scene but I am weak on the architectural points of the different generations of chips. This was a big help on my choice

hey no problem, glad i could be of some help im big on cpu architectures. one of my favorite things to read up on and study.


@ [cTx] Raptor22, its crazy what kind of support different chipsets get. ive seen 865PE based boards on LGA775 that support DDR400, AGP 8x AND Conroe very interesting to see the possibilities and combinations that are out there

[RAW-Raptor22]

hey no problem, glad i could be of some help im big on cpu architectures. one of my favorite things to read up on and study.


@ [cTx] Raptor22, its crazy what kind of support different chipsets get. ive seen 865PE based boards on LGA775 that support DDR400, AGP 8x AND Conroe very interesting to see the possibilities and combinations that are out there

Definitely, and there is that random AsRock 945 board that supports DDR and DDR2, and AGP4x/8x and PCI-e.... and C2Qs.... very strange.

[bt_medic04]

lol im sure youve seen the older asrock motherboards that were socket 754, but had the add in riser card for socket 939

[RAW-Raptor22]

lol im sure youve seen the older asrock motherboards that were socket 754, but had the add in riser card for socket 939

Lol, nope. But I remember the "Slotkets" for running Tualerons in Slot1 motherboards.

To OP: NB to P6 is about 1/2 in performance. My 1200MHz Celeron (@ 1546MHz, and the system I am posting this on) benches better than most P4Bs.

A PD965 is ~ of a C2D 6400...

[RealTelstar]

Almost any C2D would do better than the PD, so I'd at least aim for that.

ditto.
grab that e8400 (or even a e8200)