E4300 vs Pentium D 915

[DeaconFrost]

I currently have both of these processors sitting in their boxes. My wife is ready to upgrade to Vista, and we're going with Vista Home Premium x64 on her PC. The other specs are as follows:

Intel DG965WH
4 GB Corsair ValueSelect PC5300
eVGA 7900GS

She is doing some minor web development with Dreamweaver and Photoshop. She also plays a lot of games, but the most intensive being SimCity Societies and the Sims 2. I'm been comparing the two processors, and it seems that the overal workhorse edge goes to the 915. However, the E4300 represents a newer design, with better multimedia capabilities.

So, do I give her the E4300, or give her the 915 and save the 4300 for an eventual HTPC? I'm leaning towards giving her the 4300, selling the 915, and buying a new C2D when it's time for an HTPC. Any thoughts?

 

[pxc]

Yeah, give her the E4300. I have a Pentium D 925 and that thing isn't too great compared to the E4300 @ stock. This review has Pentium D and E4300 benchmark results: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/print/core2duo-e6420.html

 

[DeaconFrost]

Thanks, that article confirmed that I should give her the E4300. It came out on top above all Pentium D CPUs in all the gaming and multimedia benchmarks, despite at least a full 1 GHz clock speed disadvantage. Nice. Thanks again for the link.