Intel Pentium D 805 - Dual Core on a Budget
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 7, 2006 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Contenders
We chose a wide variety of CPUs to include in this comparison mostly based on price, after all we are interested primarily in value here. The list of CPUs and our reasoning behind including them follows below:
Intel Pentium D 920 (2.8GHz, dual core, 2MB L2 per core), Current Price: $244
The Pentium D 920 is the most expensive Intel CPU we've got in this comparison, and its role here is simply as a reference point. It is a cooler running 65nm chip, but it is priced around $100 more than its Pentium D 820 predecessor.
Intel Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz, dual core, 1MB L2 per core), Current Price: $160
You simply can't do a value dual core comparison without including the Pentium D 820. It was the first value dual core processor and to this day continues to be a great value. Other than its higher clock speed, the Pentium D 820 offers an 800MHz FSB which should come in handy in bandwidth intensive multithreaded applications.
Intel Pentium D 805 (2.66GHz, dual core, 1MB L2 per core), Current Price: $133
And of course the reason we're all here today is the Pentium D 805; $27 cheaper than the Pentium D 820, we're simply interested in finding out whether the slower 533MHz FSB and lower clock speed translate into significantly worse performance than its more expensive brother.
Intel Pentium 4 631 (3.0GHz, single core, 2MB L2), Current Price: $185
If you're intent on going Intel but want the fastest single core they offer at the same price as the Pentium D 805, the Pentium 4 631 is what you'll end up with. We included the 631 to answer the age-old (read: 2 years old) question: do you go with one fast core or two slower cores?
Intel Celeron D 351 (3.2GHz, single core, 256KB L2), Current Price: $110
We haven't looked at the Celeron D in a while, but at 3.2GHz it could be a fairly decent contender. In Intel's usual style, the Celeron D is crippled by having no Hyper-Threading support, a 533MHz FSB and only 256KB of L2 cache.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0GHz, dual core, 512KB L2 per core), Current Price: $295
AMD's entry-level dual core is the Athlon 64 X2 3800+. While its $295 entry fee is significantly more than the Pentium D 805, it's still worth including because it is such a formidable opponent. But for those interested in the absolute lowest cost, just like the Pentium D 920, it's here mostly as a reference point.
AMD Opteron 165 (1.8GHz, dual core, 1MB L2 per core), Current Price: $316
The Opteron 100 series are all Socket-939 parts, meaning they will work on desktop 939 motherboards with the latest BIOS. The 165 is particularly interesting because it is clocked slightly lower than the entry level desktop dual core part. However, being equipped with a 1MB cache per core means that the cost to manufacture isn't actually lower than the X2 3800+. We included it here, once again, mostly as a reference point as we've never done a formal Opteron 165 vs. X2 3800+ comparison.
AMD Opteron 144 (1.8GHz, single core, 1MB L2), Current Price: $177
Another Socket-939 Opteron, the 144 is simply a single core version of the dual core 165. It is the cheapest Socket-939 CPU you can get with a 1MB L2 cache, offering performance somewhere in-between the Athlon 64 3000+ and the 3200+.
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (1.8GHz, single core, 512KB L2), Current Price: $120
Finally we have AMD's cost-competitor to the Pentium D 805, it's the single core Socket-939 Athlon 64 3000+. You get the lowest clocked Socket-939 Athlon 64, with a small 512KB L2 and only a single core. But what a fierce core it is; can it stand up to two of Intel's not-so-greatest cores in the Pentium D 805? Let's find out.
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peternelson - Sunday, April 9, 2006 - link
Thanks Jack, that PCN was exactly what I needed.
I had previously looked through the Intel site but not found it myself.
Given that the physical changes were only "add 10 resistors and 2 capacitors", I wonder whether Gigabyte, Asus etc al will be modding their 975 board. Heard rumours about Asus but that their new ones won't be shipping until July? No news on Gigabyte.
Viditor - Sunday, April 9, 2006 - link
Great info...thanks Jack!xxtypersxx - Friday, April 7, 2006 - link
Well I am running an opteron 165 @2.6 ghz on a 1.45vcore, and I'd say its definately worth it. And that information is blatantly wrong, as the 3800+ runs at 1.8ghz stock, same as the 165
JarredWalton - Friday, April 7, 2006 - link
No, the X2 4200+ is a 2.2 GHz 512K part, the 3800+ is a 2.0 GHz 512K part, and the Opteron 170 is also a 2.0 GHz part but with 1024K. The 165 is definitely 200 MHz slower than the X2 3800+. Now, as for your quote, finish the paragraph:(Overclocking makes things a bit more interesting, naturally.)
This is not an overclocking article, and if you're not going to overclock then there is absolutely no reason to spend $20 more for the Opteron 165 only to get slightly slower performance. The added cache gives a 3-5% performance boost at the same clock speed; the added 200 MHz accounts for an 11% performance boost in CPU power. It's not too difficult to see which is larger.
That said, I have two X2 3800+ chips and an Opteron 165. The X2 chips hit 2.60 GHz, and the Opteron 165 hits about the same speed. The retail Opteron HSF is definitely better, but for serious overclocking you'd probably want to spend another $50 on an aftermarket HSF anyway. Is the Opteron 165 a bad purchase? No. It's also not the greatest thing ever to hit the planet. If I were to rate the X2 3800+ vs. the Opty 165, I have to call it a tie. Both are great chips, both overclock well, and both reach very near the same final performance levels in my experience.
Kougar - Friday, April 7, 2006 - link
I've really been wanting a good definite article on ALL of these proccessors! Thank you very much! This is so handy to have as a reference when people want to know what to go with for what application/purpose. I am very much looking forward to that overclocking article, it'd be very neat to see all of these processors in it ;) Can finally see how much of the hype about Opterons is grounded in fact!When prices on both the 800 and 900 series plummet to next to NOTHING within several months for Conroe (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1619">LINK), this will be handy to know. Hopefully AMD will focus on fully converting over to 300mm and 65nm processes quickly to help lower their marginal costs and therefore their own retail prices.
I did think it was rather sad to see the day when a Celeron D was fairly competetive or outright winning against a Athlon 64 3000+ though, excluding games... Guess that was just me!
artifex - Friday, April 7, 2006 - link
Please include Mersenne Prime and/or distributed.net keycracking in your testing suite :)No, seriously, each has short benchmarks to run. And these "temporary" machines will need something to do after we all upgrade again in a few months.
Googer - Friday, April 7, 2006 - link
I thought Conroe was going to run only on a 975 Chipset and early chipsets produced by Intel has a design mistake that needed to be reivised. So early spec 975 motherboards were indended to run conroe but will not, you will need a revion 2 board/chipset.
JarredWalton - Friday, April 7, 2006 - link
We're not saying you can upgrade from 805 to Conroe with the same motherboard. We're saying that for about $230 you can get a reasonable socket 775 motherboard and a PD 805 and it should handle all of your multithreaded computing needs until the AM2/Conroe launches.975X support for Conroe is still a bit unknown - I'm not sure if early 975X boards will work, and I don't even know that all current 975X boards will work. 945 *won't* work as far as I know, as 965 will be the "value" platform for Conroe processors.
hoppa - Friday, April 7, 2006 - link
I was very tempted until I saw those power ratings.... yikes.kyparrish - Friday, April 7, 2006 - link
This is the kind of article we all love reading, one that's well-detailed and concise.