Is Pentium 805 good for games

[silversurfer]

The E6300 is about equivalent to a 805D @ 3.8Ghz.

wow I didnt realise they were so close, that makes me feel a bit better though Iam sure the faster models eat it for breakfast

 

[Paul_Robson]

Is it worth getting conroe then if they are so close.

 

[silversurfer]

The Conroe is still at stock for that comparison so yes basically. Depends what price the 805 gets reduced to at release time though.
Very few people actually need this processing power though, games dont need it imo

 

[Paul_Robson]

My opteron 146 clocked at 2.8ghz with a 1 meg cache is playing all my games really well. My pc is faster and smoother too. But i think i will get a conroe 6700 or 6600

 

[martianrobot]

I will be getting a conroe for myself They dont play games often though, mainly just read the net, collect emails and do a little bit of printing(arty stuff). They dont want to spend much also, so i was thinking this chip was a cheap alternative.People seem to rate it. What do you think ?

Sorry to be a party pooper Luddite, but if thats all they want to do, then why not point them in the direction of a cheap second-hand PC or laptop with a last generation CPU? Or at least a cheapo Celeron or Sempron. My first proper PC was based on a Pentium II 266, and that handled 'reading the net, collecting emails and doing a little bit of printing' more than adequately (in 1998 at last). No point them spending a load of cash to do very basic non-CPU intensive stuff that doesn't need mental megahertz generating a lot of heat and noise.

 

[lay-z-boy]

Ah, but thanks to speedstep, conroe doesnt generate loads of heat or consume large amounts of power.

New > Old no matter what you do tbh.

 

[Arthalen]

Lets get this CPU speed in games into perspective eh? (I thought the folks you were building this for didn't do games anyway? But, that's by the by...)

Take Far Cry at 1280 x 1024. According to Toms Hardware a Pentium D820 and an X2 4200 achieve the following (They don't specify the D805, so I'm using the 820 to represent a mildly overclocked 805):-

Pentium D820 = 132.5 Frames Per Second

AMD X2 4200 = 179.4 Frames Per Second

So, a difference of 46.9 Frames Per Second. Great.

What does that mean though? Not a lot I'd say, seeing as anything over the range of 35 to 80FPS is almost irrelevant to most human eyes, and your average TFT can only manage to display 75FPS, you can see why I think we worry too much! (Enabling Vsync can change things, but that's another can of worms!)

The conclusion I'd draw is both are fine for games, so don't worry about it. Your graphics card is more important.

The Athlon 64 FX57 scores 213 or so in the same test by the way, 33.6 more FPS than the X2 4200, but nobody goes on about how rubbish an Athlon 64 FX57 is in comparison!

Heh, try this link:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores_uk/page29.html

or:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores_uk/page31.html

I'm glad I managed to hit 4Ghz with mine, saved myself some serious dosh (that I would never of had, lol).

 

[Tooks]

I guess those links illustrate the point I was trying to make.

For example the Fear benchmark at 1280 x 1024, 805 stock = 204fps and overclocked to 4.1Ghz = 220fps...

How many fps do you need?!

It's quite interesting though that a 54% overclock yields only an 8% increase in fps....

Good fun trying though!!

 

[drunkenmaster]

I guess those links illustrate the point I was trying to make.

For example the Fear benchmark at 1280 x 1024, 805 stock = 204fps and overclocked to 4.1Ghz = 220fps...

How many fps do you need?!

It's quite interesting though that a 54% overclock yields only an 8% increase in fps....

Good fun trying though!!

the point is, in games, these aren't at higher resolutions, they completely forget to tell anyone what gfx card was used for these tests(the sign of a retarded reviewer((possible its hidden in there somewhere, ain't got all day to look))). 99% of the time cpu is ONLY going to show a difference when you're at a resolution that your gfx is not even close to limited by, but you won't buy say a x1900xt and play anything at 1280x1024, when you play at the gpu limits you will be well below the cpu set fps limit, always, cpu has almost nothing to do with end games fps. the 6600gt is actually quite poor for gaming now, dropping a lot of quality settings which IMHO makes a couple of new games look really awful to become playable. a £50 sempron with a x800xl or something would be far far faster and use much better quality settings than a 805d and a 6600gt. its up to what they can spend and how often they will really game. if they aren't going to do any encoding or rendering of any kind and sempron will be more, well more than enough for gaming and e-mail/surfing use.

 

[Tooks]

I don't disagree with any of what you just said.

IMHO we worry far too much about processor speed and games.

Just buy the best processor for your needs that you can afford at the time, and use the ruddy thing!!

I was just trying to counter some of the 'Intel sucks for games' type comments you get around here.

Conroe apart, we all know AMD CPUs have been quicker than Intel where frame rates are concerned in recent history, in general. But, it often depends on the games and a few fps here or there, at whatever resolution you game at, is really nothing to concern yourself with in the great scheme of things.

I would say an 805 or one of the cut price X2's would be great in the machine the OP was thinking of building, and game frame rates is only a small part of it. As you say, the GPU is far more important.

 

[Paul_Robson]

Well, i think i will prob build them an opteron 146 system. Its relatively cheap and will play everything nicely. I want to keep on track with the tight budget but i dont want to be caught out, say if they do put a game in and it runs slow or jerky. Like i said, my opti 146 is at 2800mhz , and its running fast and smooth. I get 951 fps in quake 2 which is a cpu dependant game not gpu.When my opti 146 was standard i got 600 fps, so overclocking my cpu by 40% has given my a nice increase in power. As long as my games run smooth and my computer is stable, i will use anything. Ive had AMD for 6 years now, and i think i will change if this conroe 6600 is everything ive read up on

 

[lay-z-boy]

600fps?

951?

lol...just lost for words.

 

[silversurfer]

Jet fighter pilots can distinguish frame rates upto 400fps apparently, 100 will do me fine though. If you did a 'blind' test I bet most couldnt notice beyond 60 really, I only say 100 incase it drops at all

 

[Paul_Robson]

I fully understand what your saying. But, i have noticed that since i clocked my opteron 146 upto 2.80 ghz, my games really do run faster and a lot smoother. This is something i can prove. My vice city even plays much more faster. Ive even put my opteron 165 on ebay, coz im actually getting better results with my opteron 146. Im going to conroe in 2 weeks time, so im finally going back to intel, after 6 years.I would recommend an opti 146 to anyone, my games and my apps run well. I know the stepping of my opteron 165 wasnt the best. I always use Everest to benchark my pc and quake 2 to see how many fps i get. The test on q2 takes 0.8 seconds, that shows my cpu is fully clocked up. I guess every pc and overclock is different.