# Processors: P4 D or Athlon X2? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 29, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409 "2006-03-29T15:51:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/1 "2006-03-29T15:51:32Z")
My self built 2.4GHz P4 is getting replaced. I went cheap on the mother board and power supply, and I just don’t think there’s a worthwhile upgrade path. So, I’m going to put together (or maybe just buy this time) something capable of handling nVidia cards with SLI and serial ATA drives. Here’s where I’m stuck. I’ve always been more comfortable with Pentiums, but I know that the most recent AMD chips outperform them, with lower power consumption to boot. What _is_ the comparable Athlon to something like a 3.0GHz 930 Pentium D? The X2 3800? X2 4200? If I can at least identify nearest competitors, I can look at the cost / benefit. Along with that, any opinions on which makes a better choice would be appreciated, though opinions with some reasoning would be most helpful. One last thought, while most of the newer chips are dual core, should I be looking at any outstanding single core performers in the price range of the above chips? ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/2 "2006-03-29T22:34:50Z")
_whimper_ Can anyone enlighten me? ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/3 "2006-03-30T07:57:55Z")
I don’t know, but I’m curious about this as well. I’m planning to put together a new computer later this year, but I’m pretty clueless as to how to recognize equivalent models between the two makers. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/4 "2006-03-30T12:42:00Z")
Read up on the benchmarking articles on places like [tomshardware.com](http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/22/pentium_extreme_edition_965/) - they go into giant amounts of detail, and you can see which processors lone up against each other in the various performance charts. Aternatively look at various models of about the same price and see which perform better. Bear in mind that as well as CPU speed, there are some differences driven by the associated chipsets. For instance Intel using DDR2 versus AMD using DDR and so on. In general the performance differences are marginal, but it can make a big difference to price (rambus, anyone?). ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/5 "2006-03-30T12:52:34Z")
The best way to compare is to look at benchmarks and at the price. Checking Newegg, the Athlon 64x2 3800+ is $300, which is sandwiched between $250 Pentium D 920 (2.8ghz) and the $330 Pentium D 930 (3.0ghz). Find some benchmarks, and see what performs better. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/6 "2006-03-30T14:04:48Z")
> [@slaphead](#): > > Bear in mind that as well as CPU speed, there are some differences driven by the associated chipsets. For instance Intel using DDR2 versus AMD using DDR and so on. In general the performance differences are marginal, but it can make a big difference to price (rambus, anyone?). Good point about the DDR vs. DDR2 – more on that in a minute. Here’s what I think I know about the processors: the X2 4400 is in the same price range as the 3.2GHz Pentium D. It out performs it. I don’t see much on the 920 that RandomLetters mentions, but I’ve seen the 3Ghz 930, and even the slightly lower tiered X3800 outperforms it. Question answered? Maybe. An Athlon can only handle 400MHz DDR memory, while the Pentium D is up to 667MHz DDR2. This difference is already accounted for in the test results I’ve seen, since the Pentiums had this advantage and still scored lower. However, I do I seriously limit upgrade potential if I get a DDR capable motherboard? Am I missing some other advantage? ---
**Author:** ![Gozu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gozu/32/6615_2.png) [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/7 "2006-03-31T03:26:25Z")
> [@Waverly](#): > > Good point about the DDR vs. DDR2 – more on that in a minute. > > Here’s what I think I know about the processors: the X2 4400 is in the same price range as the 3.2GHz Pentium D. It out performs it. I don’t see much on the 920 that RandomLetters mentions, but I’ve seen the 3Ghz 930, and even the slightly lower tiered X3800 outperforms it. > > Question answered? Maybe. An Athlon can only handle 400MHz DDR memory, while the Pentium D is up to 667MHz DDR2. This difference is already accounted for in the test results I’ve seen, since the Pentiums had this advantage and still scored lower. > > However, I do I seriously limit upgrade potential if I get a DDR capable motherboard? Am I missing some other advantage? Get the X2 4400. It’s a no-brainer if you want to play games on your pc. And you said something or other about sli and nvidia so you must be a gamer. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/8 "2006-03-31T05:38:19Z")
> [@Gozu](#): > > Get the X2 4400. It’s a no-brainer if you want to play games on your pc. And you said something or other about sli and nvidia so you must be a gamer. Who, me? Yeah, I decided to go for the X2 4400 and a pair of nVidia 7900GT’s. If Photoshop runs a bit quicker, I’ll be pleased… but you already guessed what I’m really after. ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/9 "2006-03-31T07:13:54Z")
> [@slaphead](#): > > Read up on the benchmarking articles on places like [tomshardware.com](http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/22/pentium_extreme_edition_965/) - they go into giant amounts of detail, and you can see which processors lone up against each other in the various performance charts. Aternatively look at various models of about the same price and see which perform better. > > Bear in mind that as well as CPU speed, there are some differences driven by the associated chipsets. For instance Intel using DDR2 versus AMD using DDR and so on. In general the performance differences are marginal, but it can make a big difference to price (rambus, anyone?). This page at tomshardware lets you highlight two CPU’s and compare against many other cpus. [Tom's Hardware: For The Hardcore PC Enthusiast](http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html) Funny this thread just came up because I’m about to build a dual core computer and have spent a few weeks looking at price points, motherboards and cpu’s. At the end of the day all the cpu’s seems to be _about_ the same at the end of the day. Intel does something a bit better than the AMD but the same AMD beats the Intel at another process. The price of the CPU and board for both Intel and AMD come out about the same (mind you, I never EVER buy the biggest fastestCPU out. I get one a few clock speeds slower after the price drop). I decided to base my next computer on the motherboard. The [Asus A8N](http://www.pcclub.com/product_details.cfm?itemno=A4802809#) for the AMD. ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/10 "2006-03-31T14:50:46Z")
A note about DDR and DDR2 - while DDR2 is clocked higher than DDR, it also has higher latencies as well. Tom’s Hardware has a bench comparing a Skt 939Athlon 64 x2 4800 using 400mhz DDR & an early test revision Skt AM2 x2 4800+ with 667 mhz DDR2 - the DDR version was slightly faster overall. This is one of the reason’s why AMD has been holding back on its DDR2 supporting AM2 socket - they plan on releasing it in a couple months, right as the price of 800mhz DDR2 should be dropping. Of course, I just ordered an Asrock Dual SATA2 board & Athlon 64x2 3800+ - rather nifty board, as it has both fully function AGP and PCI-E slots (that way I can use my AGP Radeon x800xl, but still have a nice upgrade path) and has a slot of a daughter card that will be able to hold a Socket AM2 CPU and 2 sticks of DDR2 ram. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/processors-p4-d-or-athlon-x2/350409/11 "2006-04-01T04:33:01Z")
I just ordered the X2 4400 with 512Mb 7900GTX. At least three people on the [Oblivion thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=361620) have just ordered almost the same configuration.