Gaming PC: Intel Core 2 Duo vs. Pentium D (dual-core) / AGP vs. PCI Express

[Inazone]

My poor old Athlon XP 1800+ finally kicked the bucket after several years of service, and despite being a fairly technically adept guy, my IT job doesn't exactly keep me on top of the latest and greatest gaming hardware. I am looking for some practical comparisons on the pros and cons of two things:

Intel dual-core CPUs: Core 2 Duo vs. Pentium D

and

Video cards: AGP vs. PCI-Express

I was going to just buy a name-brand PC off the shelf, but I don't want to pay for a bunch of crap I'll never use. I have an nVidia 256MB 6600 AGP card, CD/DVD-RW, and...well, that's about everything of use from my dead box. My immediate plans (once I get up and running) are to buy/build a PC that can handle Oblivion, plus Gothic 3 and Lord of the Rings Online when they release. I have a recording PC (Pentium 4 2.4) that I want to keep dedicated to music stuff.

[rjohnstone]

The Core 2 Duo and the Pentium D are both dual core CPU's.
The architecture is a bit different, but I have one of both at work and I can't tell the difference. They are both 2.8Ghz dual core systems.
As for the video.. AGP is being phased out my all manufacturers, so go PCI-E.
You will have more choices and be able to upgrade later if you want to.

[TommyD]

Gaming PC: Intel Core 2 Duo vs. Pentium D (dual-core) / AGP vs. PCI Express

> My homeboy/computer guru tells me that even though the C2D Intel stuff might be faster for everyday stuff,the Athlon 64 stuff is WAY better for gaming. He also says the single cores like the FX-55,are better than the dual cores like the FX-62. As far as video cards go,PCI-E 16x is the way to go. As far as I know,the only company making a high end AGP card is Gainward,an English company that basically takes other manufacturers cards and pimps them out. Tommy D.

[Somnuszoth]

amd fx-60 chiip for price and a geforce 7800-7900 pci 16 x card....MSI makes good stuff a little cheaper too...especially with vista oin the horizon id go with a64 bit chip if youre building

[buzzsaww]

I'm considering getting a top end IMac for games.

Anyway, Core 2 Duo is the latest generation Intel. Pentium D will be phased out if it hasn't started already. Last time I looked at benchmarks the Core 2 duo's were cleaning house. Core 2 duos also use less power and run quite a bit cooler than the previous Intel chips. Not sure about recent AMD chips I understood they are very cool and energy efficient also.

As mentioned above AGP is out the door now go with PCI-E. Again I have not checked benchmarks in a while bit I would guess that a 256mb 7600GT nvidia based card would be better than or at least equal to your 6600 and they're not too expensive. Plus I the 7600's and up most likely support features your 6600 does not.

Make sure your spend the bucks on a good quiet power supply. Maybe some extra bucks on a quiet heatsink/fans for your CPU and video cards. My current PC sounds like a hoover when the PS fan kick up for gaming.

[Stinkbug]

Get the Core 2 Duo. Check the review sites and you will see that the E6600, E6700, and X6800 smoke the Pentium D and outperform the FX-62 in gaming.

[OnlineStageGear]

The Core 2 Duo chips are by far the fastest on the market. My employee got one and it absolutlely kicks ass. You are gonna have a lot more luck finding a Core 2 Duo board with PCI-E than you are trying to find an AGP and it is faster.

[audiophile]

To start, I (still) have a P4 2.4GHz (before PentD). I was gonna go AMD like Athlon 64 X2 3800 or thereabout, would dust my current. Procrastination paid off. C2D came out.

All AMD CPUs were smoked by Intel's new C2D architecture when released in Aug, so bad that all AMD chips dropped in price anywhere from 40%-60% just to remain competetive. That there speaks volumes.

Even with AMD's price drops, C2D still hold the cost/performance ratio all over the benchmarks.

PentiumD is a bad CPU in comparison, it's based on clock speed, faster = better, but hotter and more power draw, very inefficient. For any common user, a bottom of the barrel Pentium D 805 is likely more than enough.

DDR2 ram prices have gone up ~60% and that makes C2D not so pretty when building ground up.

New board of course, with simple goodies can run above avg price.

New board/CPU/Mem will also lead to desire new hard drive interface of SATA/SATA2 instead of old IDE.

Use old DVD or upgrade, they cheeap...

Vid card whole nother story, so many models, large range of performance, it's all how much you want to spend vs how game addicted are you.
Definitely PCI-Xpress, AGP on death bed.

There are a very few model boards I believe that have PCI-Xpress and AGP, dunno nothing bout em. But it could help soften the blow, use old vid card until a good day to replace. I'd go all new if possible.

Procrastinating more would also help due to DirectX 10 cards coming out umm sometime soon? Much more efficient but surely at a cost premium. They love milkin you for $. Current Dx9 cards will drop some $ as well.

Hard choices...
600 getcha nice working PC from DELL, 19" flat panel included. Oblivion would suck.
~1100 will build ya a baddass system no monitor. Always room to cut some cost. 1Gig RAM instead of 2, smaller primary hard drive, board with less new shit, lower model vid cards, etc. etc. Still smokin, with easy upgradability.


I visit Newegg.com all too often, waiting to jump, but keep procrastinating, which is good.

Also, think about this. Black Friday is coming. Good opportunity to get drive or vid card significantly less at local retail, maybe memory. I would start there.

So after all that spew, due to the games you mention, def C2D & PCI-Xpress, no doubts haha. Same boat for me.

[audiophile]

I'm lookin at

C2D e6400
board w/ DDR2-800 standard 4 DIMM slots, lotta SATA, 1 IDE, 1 PCIx16, 3 PCI, built in sound/Gigabit LAN, RAID capability still debatin. (P965 northbridge)
2x1Gig DDR2-800
74-150Gig Primary SATA drive (WD Raptor), more obviously later.
Upper mid-range GPU, must resist impatience, gotta wait for Dx10
New power supply ~400-550W
all else recycled from old.
~1200 with oem XP
f*****n PC hardware crack addict.

[Inazone]

Thanks for the info. I'm not in an immediate bind, as my only current gaming addiction is EverQuest, which runs fine on my recording box. I don't do any downloading anyway. The 6600 AGP was given to me from a friend, so it's not as if I'd be out any $$$ by not using it. I've been avoiding Athlon boxes, as the 1800+ was a problem child all along. I think it succumbed to overheating, despite adding fans and moving it to an area with better airflow.

I think what has been the most confusing has been the CPU speed benchmarks, as the Core 2 Duo speeds look slower in writing but have different architecture than the Pentium D line. Is there any rough comparison of what a 3.0 GHz Pentium D would "match" in the Duo line? I see a lot of the C2D 1.86 chips in name-brand systems.

[buzzsaww]

Intel has given up on more MHZ is better for the time being. All Core 2 Duo chips are slower than Pentium D chips unless you spend the big bucks for a Core 2 Extreme chip.
Since you mentioned Oblivion above here is a direct link to some benchmarks from Anandtech you'll see Pentium D's are now bottom of the barrel performance http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...px?i=2795&p=16
browse that site. He's been around for at least 10 years and has tons of information. His group reviews all kinds of stuff.

[audiophile]

Never ilke Anandtechs benchmark graphics
Check out www.tomshardware.com

[OnlineStageGear]

Never ilke Anandtechs benchmark graphics
Check out www.tomshardware.com

I have been going to Toms Hardware for many many years now. Always on the cutting edge on benchmarks.

If the Core 2 Duo didn't beat AMD enough, the Core 2 Quad is coming out

[ApeDosMil]

tomshardware is so intel biased. Get the Core 2 Duo, its blazing fast, or you could get a AMD counter part, but the Core 2 Duo I believe takes less power than AMD processors which means less heat.

[Inazone]

Get the Core 2 Duo, its blazing fast, or you could get a AMD counter part, but the Core 2 Duo I believe takes less power than AMD processors which means less heat.

See, this is a major consideration for me. My AMD ran so ridiculously hot that I had three large case fans, the CPU fan, chipset fan and the little 3.5" drive bay fan...plus the video card and power supply fans. Had to replace the power supply once and buy a new case with better ventilation. It sounded like a C-130 taking off, and in the end, it was the stupid chipset fan that died and (apparently) cooked the motherboard. I had also killed a case fan and video card fan. My current Pentium box runs quiet and cool, although I bought a case specifically built to do both...hence its primary function as a recording machine.

By all means, keep the info coming. I checked out the Oblivion benchmarks, and at this point see no reason to consider a Pentium D or AMD...unless the prices on AMD boxes are just so amazing (or my budget so pathetic) that it seems like the best option.