General Performance
Starting out with the overall system performance benchmarks, we have PCMark05, 3DMark03/05/06, and a couple 3D rendering tests. We will also include the CPU results from the 3DMark applications. Note that 3DMark05/06 have multithreaded CPU tests, while 3DMark03 does not.
The Pentium D 805 makes an immediate impression as a high-performance budget offering. The margins in 3DMark are not very large, but the Pentium D comes out ahead in all three benchmarks, both at stock speeds and when overclocked. Given that PCMark05 includes several multitasking tests, the greater margin of victory isn't too surprising. However, even if the results are somewhat expected, it does not change the fact that the Pentium D makes a great budget setup for anyone that does moderate amounts of multitasking. If we consider the X2 3800+, it comes out ahead of the Pentium D 805 at stock clock speeds, but overclocking -- at least with this particular graphics card -- results in a dead heat.
Looking at the 3DMark CPU results, things begin to spread out quite a bit. The X2 3800+ easily leads in these benchmarks, in both stock and overclocked configurations. If we ignore the X2 chip, the Pentium D 805 has a commanding lead in the multithreaded 3DMark05/06, while it trails several of the other systems in 3DMark03. We always mention how 3DMark is really a synthetic graphics benchmark as opposed to real gaming benchmarks, and the same applies to the CPU benchmarks within the 3DMark applications. They show the potential your CPU has to outperform other processors under certain situations, but whether or not real applications perform similarly is going to depend on many factors. Dual core systems definitely have more potential performance, but unfortunately the vast majority of games remain single threaded applications.
Shifting over to 3D rendering, the Sempron systems are able to do quite well in the single threaded rendering tests. Once SMP support is enabled in Cinebench, the 83% performance increase that the Pentium D and X2 gain easily eclipses the other offerings. POV-Ray also seems to like the NetBurst architecture as the result from our overclocked Pentium 805 is at the top of the chart. It's unfortunate that POV-Ray doesn't support multiple processors, but we could say the same thing about many other applications.
Starting out with the overall system performance benchmarks, we have PCMark05, 3DMark03/05/06, and a couple 3D rendering tests. We will also include the CPU results from the 3DMark applications. Note that 3DMark05/06 have multithreaded CPU tests, while 3DMark03 does not.
The Pentium D 805 makes an immediate impression as a high-performance budget offering. The margins in 3DMark are not very large, but the Pentium D comes out ahead in all three benchmarks, both at stock speeds and when overclocked. Given that PCMark05 includes several multitasking tests, the greater margin of victory isn't too surprising. However, even if the results are somewhat expected, it does not change the fact that the Pentium D makes a great budget setup for anyone that does moderate amounts of multitasking. If we consider the X2 3800+, it comes out ahead of the Pentium D 805 at stock clock speeds, but overclocking -- at least with this particular graphics card -- results in a dead heat.
Looking at the 3DMark CPU results, things begin to spread out quite a bit. The X2 3800+ easily leads in these benchmarks, in both stock and overclocked configurations. If we ignore the X2 chip, the Pentium D 805 has a commanding lead in the multithreaded 3DMark05/06, while it trails several of the other systems in 3DMark03. We always mention how 3DMark is really a synthetic graphics benchmark as opposed to real gaming benchmarks, and the same applies to the CPU benchmarks within the 3DMark applications. They show the potential your CPU has to outperform other processors under certain situations, but whether or not real applications perform similarly is going to depend on many factors. Dual core systems definitely have more potential performance, but unfortunately the vast majority of games remain single threaded applications.
Shifting over to 3D rendering, the Sempron systems are able to do quite well in the single threaded rendering tests. Once SMP support is enabled in Cinebench, the 83% performance increase that the Pentium D and X2 gain easily eclipses the other offerings. POV-Ray also seems to like the NetBurst architecture as the result from our overclocked Pentium 805 is at the top of the chart. It's unfortunate that POV-Ray doesn't support multiple processors, but we could say the same thing about many other applications.
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mariush - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
88.7 CPU AMD Sempron 3100+67.2 MB Asus K8N4-E-SE
45.2 512Mb DDRAM 400MHz Samsung
85.1 250 GB Maxtor 16Mb SATA II 300 6V250F0 DiamondMax 10 with NCQ
41.9 ASUS DRW-1608P3S
86.1 ASUS EN6600-SILENCER/TD/128
26.3 400 W Generic case
That would be budget.. $440 plus taxes.. and runs any game currently on the market.
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Runs or runs well? 7600 GT is going to be about 75% faster in GPU-limited benches. 512MB of RAM "runs any game" sure - but some games suck with less than 1GB. Actually, a lot of games suck with only 512MB RAM. Look up about 4 posts for my budget recommendations. Either you don't care about gaming (get IGP), or gaming is important (get at least 7600 GT). Anything else is basically limping along.Kougar - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Thanks for another great article! Really appreciated this one as it answered my Sempron vs 805 vs X2 3800+ curiosity that'd been growing, using the 7600GT no less! No component nitpicking from here! ;)Since ya brought up the E6300, I just wanted to ensure y'all had seen this website that has a authentic 2mb cache version, that included some very lovely benchmarks and even added some E6300 @ 2.4ghz benchmarks to boot. I can't say the revision number of the chip used though to gauge if this was a newer or older not quite as OC-able chip. Er, if I didn't say so before, it's in French, but that's what Google is for! http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/306/merom-et-co...">Linky
Oh, and I guess while on the subject... NDA lifts for y'all tomorrow right?? ;)
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Yup. Tomorrow is the big day. :)Paladin165 - Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - link
Jarred, thanks for the guide. It was just what I needed. However I do think it might be interesting to do a kind of "below-budget" guide. Find the cheapest possible system that still runs XP reliably, and uses new, off-the-shelf parts to do it. I do feel like anandtech focuses too much on rather high-end parts. I have to plead with my wife for any part over $50!I mean when you say budget gaming you really mean budget cutting-edge gaming. Don't forget that every game worth playing wasn't made last year...there are thousands of games out there that the integrated GeForce 6100 or 6150 handles fine. Many of these are better than current games, after all there are only one or two really classic games released every year. The only star game on metacritic right now is Oblivion.
I'd like to see what kind of computer you could buy today for $200 or $300 total.
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Not sure you can really get under $300 without making some serious compromises. I insist on:1GB RAM
DVDR
Everything else is up for change. So let's see....
Socket AM2:
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=477...">ECS Xpress 300 CrossFire RS485M-M $62
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=460...">AMD Sempron 3000+ 256KB Manila (1.6 GHz) $62
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=435...">G.Skill PC-4200 2x512MB Extreme NT $75
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=436...">BenQ 16X DW1650 $33
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=172...">Hitachi SATA 3.0Gbps 80GB Deskstar 7K80 $48
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">Generic Linkworld Case + 430W PSU $37
TOTAL = $317
Alternative AM2 Parts:
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=482...">ECS nForce 410 GeForce 6100 C51GM-M $72
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=435...">G.Skill PC-5300 2x512MB Extreme LA $85
Socket 754:
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=418...">MSI nForce 410 GeForce 6100 K8NGM-V $62
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=293...">AMD Sempron 64 2800+ 256KB Palermo (1.6 GHz) $56
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=433...">G.Skill PC-3200 1024MB Value NT $84
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=436...">BenQ 16X DW1650 $33
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=172...">Hitachi SATA 3.0Gbps 80GB Deskstar 7K80 $48
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">Generic Linkworld Case + 430W PSU $37
TOTAL = $320
Socket 775:
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=425...">MSI Xpress 200 RC410M-L $68
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=438...">Intel Pentium D 805 533FSB 2x1MB $114
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=435...">G.Skill PC-4200 2x512MB Extreme NT $75
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=436...">BenQ 16X DW1650 $33
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=172...">Hitachi SATA 3.0Gbps 80GB Deskstar 7K80 $48
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">Generic Linkworld Case + 430W PSU $37
TOTAL = $375
Alternative 775 Parts:
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=220...">Intel Pentium D 820 800FSB 2x1MB $109 After Rebate ($146 otherwise)
http://labs.anandtech.com/alllinks.php?pfilter=435...">G.Skill PC-5300 2x512MB Extreme LA $85
I spent much more on the Pentium D setup (relatively speaking), but that second CPU core can be extremely helpful. Even without OC'ing, the PD805 is definitely faster than just about any Sempron chip. Run Folding@Home for example, and you can get upwards of 400 PPD compared to about 200 PPD for Sempron chips. However, these are all just general picks and not something I've actually tested or benchmarked. Maybe some of the mobos suck - I don't really know for sure. At $317, the AM2 is a nice pick. No sense in getting 754 for $3 more. $375 for the PD805 system is also quite nice, for a dual core config.
jonp - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Question:For Socket 775 you list the MSI Xpress 200 RC410M-L motherboard. Neither NewEgg nor MSI show this board compatible with a Pentium D processor. Will the Dual Core Intel Pentium D 805 actually run on this motherboard?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?mode...">http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?mode...
JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
That's the problem with trying to cut costs. :| Apparently I screwed up (since this was a quicker post than I'd use for article recommendations). So swap out the MSI board for...Hell, let's go with the ASRock Core 2 compatible model. :) (If you want to overclock, probably go elsewhere!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">ASRock 775Dual-VSTA ($64)
I'm stuck looking for an IGP solution for socket 775 that will support Pentium D. Looks like you might need to get a discrete GPU or else stick with Intel 945G chipsets.
midfield - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
Thanks for the review and comments.I'm wondering if you'd make recommendations on a motherboard for socket 775 which has more SATA ports, or a SATA controller card, and also a full tower case. I'd like to build an OpenSolaris+ZFS disk array server for the home.
Viditor - Monday, July 17, 2006 - link
I'm surprised you didn't include the Asus M2NPV-VM (AM2) in the build...Raid 5 (as well as the usual 0/1/10)
Dual Head (both VGA and DVI) output
HDTV audio and video including RGB
nVidia 6150 graphics
Firewire
GBE
All for under $90...