Dual Core and Single Core - Newbie Q

[Dreams]

First off, howdy . Secondly, an actual question

Intel Pentium 4 541 "LGA775 Prescott" 3.2GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology - Retail (CP-058-IN)
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN)

Very similar priced Intel CPU's, one's Dual Core, the other isn't, in layman's terms what's going to be the difference in Performance, power consumption, compat, etc?

Thanks

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Hi.

I think its going to come down to what you want to use it for, and whether you are going to be clocking them or not. Take a look through here to start with - http://tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.html and compare the 805 with the 540.

Assuming no overclocking, the Prescott will run most single threaded applications faster. Things start to change when looking at multi threaded applications (like many video encoding apps for example) or when multitasking. If you run things like a firewall and virus scanner, you're multitasking as they are always there in the background.

The Pentium D 805 is well known for overclocking quite well. It has a high multiplier and low FSB which helps. Over 4ghz has been done. But you will need really good cooling to push it hard.

Neither are particularly energy efficient compared to Athlon 64 or Core 2 Duo and they run hot. But if it was my money I'd go for the Dual Core 805 out of the two, and try to overclock it as far as I could. I'd also build it with an upgrade path to Core 2 Duo in mind. They are much better than the P4's

 

[wizardmaxx]

Hi.

I think its going to come down to what you want to use it for, and whether you are going to be clocking them or not. Take a look through here to start with - http://tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.html and compare the 805 with the 540.

Assuming no overclocking, the Prescott will run most single threaded applications faster. Things start to change when looking at multi threaded applications (like many video encoding apps for example) or when multitasking. If you run things like a firewall and virus scanner, you're multitasking as they are always there in the background.

The Pentium D 805 is well known for overclocking quite well. It has a high multiplier and low FSB which helps. Over 4ghz has been done. But you will need really good cooling to push it hard.

Neither are particularly energy efficient compared to Athlon 64 or Core 2 Duo and they run hot. But if it was my money I'd go for the Dual Core 805 out of the two, and try to overclock it as far as I could. I'd also build it with an upgrade path to Core 2 Duo in mind. They are much better than the P4's

Nice summary Papa.

 

[Dreams]

Neither are particularly energy efficient compared to Athlon 64 or Core 2 Duo and they run hot. But if it was my money I'd go for the Dual Core 805 out of the two, and try to overclock it as far as I could. I'd also build it with an upgrade path to Core 2 Duo in mind. They are much better than the P4's

Thanks, The problem with Core 2 Duo is the money really =)

Probably be getting the 805 then. TY Again

 

[Boogle]

AV/background tasks generally work just as well with HT tbh. Dualcore really comes into its own when you have two intensive tasks, or a multithreaded task.