Pentium D 945 3.4 GHZ VS P4 3.00 GHz

[Cartho]

hey all
apart from the obvious (higher clockspeed), how much better would a 3.4 gHz PD 945 be ov er a p4 3.00 GHz?

I cant upgrade to C2D due to my MTB beiong a freaky Dell one, and I simply do not have the money for the full system upgrade that I desperately need.
So this is my best upgrade option.
I am a gamer, and so want dual core for newer games such as Supreme Commander, and was basically wondering how much of a boost having a dual core 945 3.4 GHz Pentium D would give me over my current 3.00 GHz Pentium 4 630 with Hyper threading?

 

[GuruJockStrap]

I'd say you'd get a much better performance boost upgrading the graphics card to be honest.

There are very games at the moment that make use of Dual Core CPU's so for the majority of games it'll just be 3.4GHz and I don't think you'll see a massive difference in performance.

Whats the rest of the system like, in particular the graphics card?

 

[Cartho]

1 GB Dual Channel DR2 533 MHz
256MB Geforce 6800

I am now planning on upgrading to an 8800 GTS, presume I would see a big performance boost with this?

 

[SteveOBHave]

I went from a P4 530 @ 3GHz to a P4 D950 @4GHz and to be honest ingame there was a little improvement, most noticeable when using something like Teamspeak or something else running in the background. It's not a huge amount of money to upgrade to a dual core and it makes the everyday use of the PC much nicer.

You will see a fairly decent performance increase with the video card (to be honest it'll poop all over your 6800 )

Personally I think you are better off spending the money on your next intended upgrade and not some halfway point - so I'd aim for your next processor purchase to be a C2D and a new motherboard or as you say the 8800GTS. I wouldn't waste your money on a halfway solution at this time.

 

[Northwind]

hey all
apart from the obvious (higher clockspeed), how much better would a 3.4 gHz PD 945 be ov er a p4 3.00 GHz?

I cant upgrade to C2D due to my MTB beiong a freaky Dell one, and I simply do not have the money for the full system upgrade that I desperately need.
So this is my best upgrade option.
I am a gamer, and so want dual core for newer games such as Supreme Commander, and was basically wondering how much of a boost having a dual core 945 3.4 GHz Pentium D would give me over my current 3.00 GHz Pentium 4 630 with Hyper threading?

Be careful with this- but I bullied Dell into admitting that some of the boards that they shipped the Pentium 4 systems with will run a Core 2 Duo, mine included. I got blank "Won't work"s from everyone till one stupidly said "Your board can't run any dual core processor"- it already is, a D. So used that to actually get to speak to someone with a clue, rather than a monkey, who confirmed from my build number that it was a compatible board.

Obviously, don't assume yours is the same! But just because Dell say it won't doesn't mean that it won't.

 

[lay-z-boy]

The pentium D is much faster than the old pentium 4, even at the same speeds.

However, upgrading to 2gb ram and a new graphics card would result in a much better boost than upgrading your cpu.

 

[Cartho]

Ok guys I am beggining to get a clearer picture now.
My board IS an i945 P/PL/G/GZ, and apparently they ARE Core 2 compatible, however apparently the potential stumbling block is that they have a different voltage requiremnt, called VRD11 or something, and that my board might not support this.

I think that I am going to save my cash and get that 8800 GTS (provided the damned thing fits in my case) because as has already been said, it will totally crap all over my vanilla 6800.

Then a RAM upgrade is probably next.

I will look into the Core 2 thing, I am fairly sure that my chipset is ok, the big question is this voltage thing. Did you say that you spoke to Dell and bullied them into telling you whether it was core 2 compatible?