P4? PD? or PEE?

[NightWolfe]

I haven't looked at procs much at all lately so any help or suggestions would be great .. the system is going to be purely for gaming .. so that is my driving goal behind this .. and I want something fast as hell that is going to last me a while (2 years+/-) ...

I just don't know what to go for or what is the best chip for gaming .. the choices would be either ...

P4 640 3.2
P4 670 3.8
PD 840 3.2 - HT (I suppose all PDs are HT)
PEE 3.2 - Dual Core - HT (don't know if all are now or not)

basically whats the best for gaming ? would the HT really help ? I'm guessing no .. Is the EE that much better of a chip ? or are the gains minimal ...

And one final question .. are the Dell XPS rigs OCable ? if they are I'm guessing I could go with a 640 or 650 and OC the hell out of it .. if they aren't OCable I suppose I'll just build from scratch (only reason I'm considering Dell is I have an account there) ...

any thoughts or info are welcome .. thanks ...

 

[[Tripod]MajorPayne]

Actually, Pentium D's are only physical dual cores. They do not have HT, although you DO get 2 separate cores running @ 3.2Ghz each in your example. Only the Pentium D Extreme Editions have HT. I believe they also have extra cache, so you get 2 real cores (x2 logical cores each b/c of HT), all total 4 cores + extra cache. That's all you get for your high price premium. The regular PD's are just 2 cores and 2MB cache I think.

 

[SatinSpiral]

Actually, Pentium D's are only physical dual cores. They do not have HT, although you DO get 2 separate cores running @ 3.2Ghz each in your example. Only the Pentium D Extreme Editions have HT. I believe they also have extra cache, so you get 2 real cores (x2 logical cores each b/c of HT), all total 4 cores + extra cache. That's all you get for your high price premium. The regular PD's are just 2 cores and 2MB cache I think.

Don't you also get an unlocked multiplier???

 

[NightWolfe]

Actually, Pentium D's are only physical dual cores. They do not have HT, although you DO get 2 separate cores running @ 3.2Ghz each in your example. Only the Pentium D Extreme Editions have HT. I believe they also have extra cache, so you get 2 real cores (x2 logical cores each b/c of HT), all total 4 cores + extra cache. That's all you get for your high price premium. The regular PD's are just 2 cores and 2MB cache I think.

Cool thanks for clearing that up .. it's been awhile and the difference in chips is a bit confusing at first ...

any suggestions on what would be best for gaming is appreciated .. I'm supposing the best bang for your buck perspective would be the P4 and OC it but if anyone can say for sure that would help ...

and if anyone knows if you can OC the Dell XPS that would be great too .. thanks ...

 

[Blethrow]

You do. I have an 840 EE, and it OC'es to 4.08 easily with no voltage increase. Unlocked multiplier is quite nice.

Don't you also get an unlocked multiplier???

 

[fatez]

If the system is for pure gaming, than y not go with AMD. Everyone knows that AMD is overall better for gaming. An amd 3200 can almost equal a PEE in gaming Let alone an FX chips will hand the EE a whooping.

 

[TheBlueChanell]

If the system is for pure gaming, than y not go with AMD. Everyone knows that AMD is overall better for gaming. An amd 3200 can almost equal a PEE in gaming Let alone an FX chips will hand the EE a whooping.

Quit trolling the intel threads. Face it, amd may be better, but people still prefer intel. Are you trying to make yourself bait.

 

[NightWolfe]

Quit trolling the intel threads. Face it, amd may be better, but people still prefer intel. Are you trying to make yourself bait.

Thank you .. that's why I didn't even bother replying .. I could really care less if I'm gonna get 10 FPS more with an AMD setup I'd rather have Intel plain and simple ...

I still can't decide wether to get a PD 3.0 or 3.2 or get a P4 3.4 .. I'm pretty sure the 3.4 will go higher OCing but the PD may still be a better choice .. I really don't know alot about the PDs ...

any links to bench tests between the PDs and P4 6xx's ?

 

[robberbaron]

At the end of the initial post
"any thoughts or info are welcome .. thanks ..."

Way to contradict thyself.

I would personally get a Pentium D. Dual cores are a lot smoother than single cores, even if single cores have HT.

 

[CastleBravo]

To answer the original question, get the highest clocked single core CPU you can get. Games don't use multiple cores, they only use one, so get the fastest single CPU you can. So I think the Pentium 4 660 is the ideal choice, the much more expensive P4EE 3.74 is marginally faster sometimes, but much much more expensive.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-840_11.html

"Quit trolling the intel threads. Face it, amd may be better, but people still prefer intel. Are you trying to make yourself bait."

How is telling the truth trolling? I'm curious. Not everybody knows that Athlon 64s consistently out-perform comparably priced Intel CPUs at almost all games. So I don't see how the guy was a dick to bring it up when the guy is asking for the best choice for a pure gaming rig, Intel forum or not. Do I need an Intel decoder ring to post here?

If some guy over in the AMD forum said they wanted an AMD CPU to do LAME MP3 encoding all the time, I'd tell him that he'd be insane to not get an Intel instead, just to use a handy counter-example, because a more affordable Pentium 660 would out-perform a much more expensive x2 4800+ or FX-55 at it. AMD just isn't the best choice for THAT job, anymore than Intel is the best choice for a gaming rig.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-840_13.html

People really need to stop taking this silly shit personally. Somebody suggesting the optimal equipment for the job you are interested in doing isn't automatically an OMG F@N801 GET OUT OF OUR TREE FORT! Just chill out and take it for what it's worth. Especially when you said:

any thoughts or info are welcome .. thanks ...

 

[Dillusion]

I have a Pentium D 830 and i like it better than my 570J

 

[fatez]

To answer the original question, get the highest clocked single core CPU you can get. Games don't use multiple cores, they only use one, so get the fastest single CPU you can. So I think the Pentium 4 660 is the ideal choice, the much more expensive P4EE 3.74 is marginally faster sometimes, but much much more expensive.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-840_11.html

"Quit trolling the intel threads. Face it, amd may be better, but people still prefer intel. Are you trying to make yourself bait."

How is telling the truth trolling? I'm curious. Not everybody knows that Athlon 64s consistently out-perform comparably priced Intel CPUs at almost all games. So I don't see how the guy was a dick to bring it up when the guy is asking for the best choice for a pure gaming rig, Intel forum or not. Do I need an Intel decoder ring to post here?

If some guy over in the AMD forum said they wanted an AMD CPU to do LAME MP3 encoding all the time, I'd tell him that he'd be insane to not get an Intel instead, just to use a handy counter-example, because a more affordable Pentium 660 would out-perform a much more expensive x2 4800+ or FX-55 at it. AMD just isn't the best choice for THAT job, anymore than Intel is the best choice for a gaming rig.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-840_13.html

People really need to stop taking this silly shit personally. Somebody suggesting the optimal equipment for the job you are interested in doing isn't automatically an OMG F@N801 GET OUT OF OUR TREE FORT! Just chill out and take it for what it's worth. Especially when you said:

Thank You for defending me.



<<<Originally Posted by TheBlueChanell
Quit trolling the intel threads. Face it, amd may be better, but people still prefer intel. Are you trying to make yourself bait.


Thank you .. that's why I didn't even bother replying .. I could really care less if I'm gonna get 10 FPS more with an AMD setup I'd rather have Intel plain and simple ...>>>



I realize that this is an intel forum but I believe my suggestion was valid. I never once in my post degrade Intel in anyway. It was just only a suggestion seeing how that you wanted a machine for pure gaming. I also thought that my suggestion could save you some money and helping you better achieve your goal (pure gaming). However, you attacked me. Let me tell you this, next time you ask for an opinion and someone really try to help you, don't be an asshole and start calling them names.

 

[NightWolfe]

Thank You for defending me.



<<<Originally Posted by TheBlueChanell
Quit trolling the intel threads. Face it, amd may be better, but people still prefer intel. Are you trying to make yourself bait.


Thank you .. that's why I didn't even bother replying .. I could really care less if I'm gonna get 10 FPS more with an AMD setup I'd rather have Intel plain and simple ...>>>



I realize that this is an intel forum but I believe my suggestion was valid. I never once in my post degrade Intel in anyway. It was just only a suggestion seeing how that you wanted a machine for pure gaming. I also thought that my suggestion could save you some money and helping you better achieve your goal (pure gaming). However, you attacked me. Let me tell you this, next time you ask for an opinion and someone really try to help you, don't be an asshole and start calling them names.

if you think I attacked you get your facts straight and read the thread over ...

and I'm sorry I wasn't specific enough .. I figured posting in the Intel forum would have been enough of a clue that I didn't want AMD but I guess I need to spell shit out here .. my thoughts an opinions were about my build .. not o go AMD cus they're better .. I was more looking for don't get this brand ram get this one .. or get the 3.2 not the 3.4 they OC better ...

I do apologize for not spelling everything out in great detail .. I suppose I have to for some folks here .. so thanks to who suggested getting the Single Core 6xx series over the Dual core .. I spoke with some others tonight and they suggested the same ..

this thread can go away now as I've made my decisions .. thanks to any who helped ...

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

Instead of trolling I'm going to post some benchmarks and let him make up his own mind.

*cough*

If you buy a 1000$ Extreme Edition P4 it will get beaten by a 300$ 3500+ AMD cpu in almost every game. If you by a 1000$ FX-57 it will beat anything Intel be be able to put out for at least a year to come. If your doing gaming AMD is faster, period. If you want to talk ripping, encoding or other tasks we'll talk, but for gaming AMD is better right now.

*Of course if you're an hard core Intel !!!!!!, the Pentium M is your best bet.

 

[chrisf6969]

Don't buy an EE (Extremely Expensive).

Just buy a P4 630 and OC the hell out of it.

I haven't heard of a single 6_0 series chip that didn't hit 4Ghz fairly easily.
The N0 stepping is great for overclocking!!

And like the AMD trolls like to come in here and say.... yes an AMD A64 is faster for gaming. But you'd need to buy an A64 X2 if you still want your multi-tasking smoothness.

But you'd also need to buy an AMD (via, nvidia or SIS chipset) motherboard which while the NF4 is great, I've still heard a few (not many) complaints about IDE (harddrive/optical drive) stability issues with it.

a 630 at 4Ghz will be fast enough to keep any videocard fed though.

Or if you just like spending a lot of money. Get a 2.26 Pentium M 780 ($600+) and OC it to 2.6+Ghz on that new 915 motherboard ($300) with dual channel DDR2, PCIe 16x, etc.

 

[NightWolfe]

Don't buy an EE (Extremely Expensive).

Just buy a P4 630 and OC the hell out of it.

I haven't heard of a single 6_0 series chip that didn't hit 4Ghz fairly easily.
The N0 stepping is great for overclocking!!

And like the AMD trolls like to come in here and say.... yes an AMD A64 is faster for gaming. But you'd need to buy an A64 X2 if you still want your multi-tasking smoothness.

But you'd also need to buy an AMD (via, nvidia or SIS chipset) motherboard which while the NF4 is great, I've still heard a few (not many) complaints about IDE (harddrive/optical drive) stability issues with it.

a 630 at 4Ghz will be fast enough to keep any videocard fed though.

Or if you just like spending a lot of money. Get a 2.26 Pentium M and OC it to 2.6+Ghz on that new 915 motherboard with dual channel DDR2, PCIe 16x, etc.

Going to get the 650 actually .. and if I can hit 4+GHz on air like everyone else is I'll be happy .. 2GBs DDR2 800 7800GT SATA2 500GB RAID5 .. all that fun stuff .. it should be smoking one way or another .. thanks agian ...

 

[chrisf6969]

Going to get the 650 actually .. and if I can hit 4+GHz on air like everyone else is I'll be happy .. 2GBs DDR2 800 7800GT SATA2 500GB RAID5 .. all that fun stuff .. it should be smoking one way or another .. thanks agian ...

NICE! I've been wanting to upgrade. But my system performs like a 3.4EE w/ 6800U already so I'm going to try to wait until next summer for the next generation stuff.

Now if a 7800GT AGP card comes out, I might just have to get it and hold off even longer for a total overhaul.

 

[DBZ33]

Hey everyone. I don't post that much but I just went through this all. I had a P4 550 overclocked to 4.0GHz with a ASUS board. I never had a single problem with it. Well I keep hearing that AMD is so great and the X2 cpus sounded really nice, so I purchsed a 4400+ X2, 2gb Curcial Ballistixs ram, EVGA 7800GTX, EXOS-2 watercooling, ASUS A8N SLI Preimum board. I had problems from day one. I had the ASUS RMA and then went ABIT AN8 SLi and even worse. I just took the whole system apart last night and I am sending everything back, and go back to Intel.

I think I will go with an ASUS P5WD2, Intel 630, 2 gig Crucial Ballistixs 6400 DDR2. I am also looking at the Pentium D but if you overclock they put out a lot of heat. I might just get the 630 and wait for Intels next dual core cpu's.

 

[NightWolfe]

Hey everyone. I don't post that much but I just went through this all. I had a P4 550 overclocked to 4.0GHz with a ASUS board. I never had a single problem with it. Well I keep hearing that AMD is so great and the X2 cpus sounded really nice, so I purchsed a 4400+ X2, 2gb Curcial Ballistixs ram, EVGA 7800GTX, EXOS-2 watercooling, ASUS A8N SLI Preimum board. I had problems from day one. I had the ASUS RMA and then went ABIT AN8 SLi and even worse. I just took the whole system apart last night and I am sending everything back, and go back to Intel.

I think I will go with an ASUS P5WD2, Intel 630, 2 gig Crucial Ballistixs 6400 DDR2. I am also looking at the Pentium D but if you overclock they put out a lot of heat. I might just get the 630 and wait for Intels next dual core cpu's.

Ugh that sucks man .. better luck with your Intel build .. sounds like it'll be pretty sweet ...

chrisf6969 .. thanks man .. what I'm running now is in my sig .. and while it's great for my work it's getting a bit long in the tooth for gaming .. probbaly the biggest killer for my current setup is the 400FSB ...

 

[Nakamori]

Going to get the 650 actually .. and if I can hit 4+GHz on air like everyone else is I'll be happy .. 2GBs DDR2 800 7800GT SATA2 500GB RAID5 .. all that fun stuff .. it should be smoking one way or another .. thanks agian ...

Though I haven't heard of anyone eschewing AMD for their high-end gaming rig...

I would suggest two raptors instead of that 500GB. Unless you're editing/recording video, 500GB is wayyyyy overkill. How many games do you plan to have installed at one time? . The raptor will have much shorter loading times than any 500GB, and combined 150 gigs should be more than plenty for your entire game collection. If you want to have your music and video on the computer too, then get one raptor and a 250 GB drive.

Also I would suggest going SLI as money doesn't seem to be an issue in your case...

 

[NightWolfe]

Though I haven't heard of anyone eschewing AMD for their high-end gaming rig...

I would suggest two raptors instead of that 500GB. Unless you're editing/recording video, 500GB is wayyyyy overkill. How many games do you plan to have installed at one time? . The raptor will have much shorter loading times than any 500GB, and combined 150 gigs should be more than plenty for your entire game collection. If you want to have your music and video on the computer too, then get one raptor and a 250 GB drive.

Also I would suggest going SLI as money doesn't seem to be an issue in your case...

The 500GB isn't one drive .. it's actually 3 250GB 7200RPM SATA-2 WD HardDrives in a RAID 5 array .. that should pretty much kick the shit outta most stuff .. plus it gives me a ton of room for stuff ...

I was thinking about SLI but I can't find a board that supports everything I want and has SLI ..

Board needs ...

SATA (preferable SATA-2)
RAID 5
DDR-2 (Dual Channel)

easy overclocking .. and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting .. but I haven't seen any SLI boards with those 3 things ...

appreciate the input though ...

 

[Nakamori]

The 500GB isn't one drive .. it's actually 3 250GB 7200RPM SATA-2 WD HardDrives in a RAID 5 array .. that should pretty much kick the shit outta most stuff .. plus it gives me a ton of room for stuff ...

I was thinking about SLI but I can't find a board that supports everything I want and has SLI ..

Board needs ...

SATA (preferable SATA-2)
RAID 5
DDR-2 (Dual Channel)

easy overclocking .. and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting .. but I haven't seen any SLI boards with those 3 things ...

appreciate the input though ...

Well if this is indeed a gaming rig then SLI would take precedence over the things you listed. Assuming you're getting a decent sized monitor, a single 7800GTX, as great as it is, will probably not be able to run games released 2 years from now at max settings at 1600x1200. SLI will lengthen the "high-end gaming" status of your computer for much longer than RAID or Overclockability.

 

[robberbaron]

Well if this is indeed a gaming rig then SLI would take precedence over the things you listed. Assuming you're getting a decent sized monitor, a single 7800GTX, as great as it is, will probably not be able to run games released 2 years from now at max settings at 1600x1200. SLI will lengthen the "high-end gaming" status of your computer for much longer than RAID or Overclockability.

2 years from now his rig will be old and busted. Imagine a rig 2 years ago. High end would be a 3.2ghz P4 and something like a Ti4200. Granted the Ti4200 was a great card, it can't even play the newest games. I think a single 7800GTX now is overkill for the current games, and next year will bring better cards that he could "trade up" to by selling the single 7800GTX.

 

[Nakamori]

Actually the high-end card two years ago is the radeon 9800pro, which in benchmarks today fall between 6600 and 6600GT in terms of performance. now imagine two 9800pro's working in tandem. Now you're talking about 6800GT performance. I guarantee that SLI 7800GTX's will still be very much high end in two years.

 

[robberbaron]

Actually the high-end card two years ago is the radeon 9800pro, which in benchmarks today fall between 6600 and 6600GT in terms of performance. now imagine two 9800pro's working in tandem. Now you're talking about 6800GT performance. I guarantee that SLI 7800GTX's will still be very much high end in two years.

I think it will be mid-range at best, since, SLI will still exist for future cards. Even then, we'll probably see more games that fill the 256mb framebuffer requiring 384mb or 512mb cards for smoothness.

 

[cnick79]

The 500GB isn't one drive .. it's actually 3 250GB 7200RPM SATA-2 WD HardDrives in a RAID 5 array .. that should pretty much kick the shit outta most stuff .. plus it gives me a ton of room for stuff ...

I thought RAID 5 was a slower performing RAID then RAID 0. I would go with 2 74GB Raptors in RAID 0 and then RAID 1 two 200GB or 250GB drives if you're worried about space. How much space are you using right now for games, storage, mp3s, videos, pirated game ISOs, porn? Take how much space you use for just games installed and double it, that's how much you should get. Then double your used space for mp3s, etc and double that. You should be good for a while.

 

[RoCkStAr*]

I've heard that the Samsung Spinpoint P120S can compete with a Raptor performance-wise, and its larger 250gb storage is good for general use.

 

[chrisf6969]

The 500GB isn't one drive .. it's actually 3 250GB 7200RPM SATA-2 WD HardDrives in a RAID 5 array .. that should pretty much kick the shit outta most stuff .. plus it gives me a ton of room for stuff ...

I was thinking about SLI but I can't find a board that supports everything I want and has SLI ..

Board needs ...

SATA (preferable SATA-2)
RAID 5
DDR-2 (Dual Channel)

easy overclocking .. and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting .. but I haven't seen any SLI boards with those 3 things ...

appreciate the input though ...

Nvidia will probably enable SLI support for 945/955 boards in their drivers later. Sis's dual PCIe board worked with hacked drivers. I think its just a matter of time, so you might want to get one of the mobo's with 2 PCIe slots. Though it might not officially support SLI now, and it only has 4x PCIe bandwidth, it will probably work fine for SLI in the future.

Mod Edit - No one asked about AMD in this thread, yet this is what we get:

Instead of trolling I'm going to post some benchmarks and let him make up his own mind.

If the system is for pure gaming, than y not go with AMD. Everyone knows that AMD is overall better for gaming. An amd 3200 can almost equal a PEE in gaming Let alone an FX chips will hand the EE a whooping.

"Quit trolling the intel threads. Face it, amd may be better, but people still prefer intel. Are you trying to make yourself bait."

How is telling the truth trolling? I'm curious.

Let me explain it to you. The thead starter asked about P4 versions. He said nothing about AMD. If that still is too hard to comprehend, PM me and I'd be happy to explain it in whatever detail is required to make the point clear.

The trolling stops, or the bans start. Up to you.

B.B.S.