Im trying to decide what to do. I want to upgrade but have a budget and want to spend as little as possible. Basicaly I want to buy a CPU, either the P4 661 or 672 or the pentium D 950

I ocasionaly use Blender 3D and also I play Splintercell Chaos theory and Farcry but would like to play crysis, might need a gfx card but ignore that and asume I have the best gfx card and need a cpu to match. I also do some C++ and visual C# as well as Photoshop CS3, those are basicaly my needs. What do you recomend, the cpu comparason charts differ, sometimes pentium d is ahead and sometimes p4 which is what confuses me

My current specks located below and in my profile. I was given a P4 1.8GHz northwood but it apears that will be slower then my Celeron D 2.8GHz So I found out what cpus my mobo supports with my current bios and revision.

Should I buy a Pentium D or P4 672

I realize core 2 is the latest, but not sure im willing to spend that money yet, I still am saveing for my A+ certification

Asus P5VDC-MX rev 1
512MB DDR 400 RAM
Celeron D 2.8GHz 336 (256k L2) 90nm
Server 2003 Enterprise SP2

Pentium D950

it is for sure a 64 bit chip with 2 x 2Mb cache and is running at a 65nm process and is a good chip ( not as good as core 2 duo mind ).


click on link

http://www.intel.com/Products/Serv [...] uments.htm

where the P4 is a 90nm processor ( runs hotter ) less cache, not dual core and runs hot

http://processorfinder.intel.com/d [...] Spec=SL8Q9


GO FOR THE D950 anytime

I'd go for the Pentium D also.

Between the two, go with the D.

Pentium D 950

it's crap but it still beats a Prescott

pentium d 900 series, unless it costs alot more than the others.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_ [...] &chart=436

if your mobo limits you to pentium d or p4 then go pentium d.... if not then go for one of the new line of dual core pentiums wich are based on the fast core 2 chips and are usualy as cheap and as fast if not faster but cooler and less power hungry.

^agreed. Looks like its time to upgrade (in about ~6 months i say). Between the P4 and the PD, get the PD. You could also gain a boost by upgrading to 2GB RAM, but not sure about the RAM since the DDR prices are ridiculous these days.

According to Asus's website using the latest bios you can use any Core 2 Duo processor (non 45nm versions), but I would contact Asus about it though as their site is contradictory on this area. Although it does state you can't use the Celeron 4x0 series though..

If it is possible the Pentium E21x0 is much better than any P4 processor.. But that is only if the Rev 1.0 board supports them, which it might but you will need to update the bios though.

thanks for all the valued input, cpu choice made, Ill buy the D950 though im not sure where you found the core 2 support caqde , link please

My board suports ddr and ddr 2 would it be any advantage to me to invest in 1G of ddr2

Slightly off topic but still within the realm of upgrades, I have 1 sata drive already and my system suports raid 0 and 1, if I bought in the future another sata drive, and set it for stripeing would that provide any significant preformance boost?

http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

Look at V2 and V1's charts either Asus doesn't know how to update the charts or they don't know how to put the PCB version where it belongs as the Celeron 4x0 series is the only one in the V2 charts that has a PCB requirement listed. V2's first Bios is version 0709 so I don't see why they need to list old bios versions in the V2 charts... Who knows official word or a drop in test with that board is the only way to get a real answer..

Get the D950 and OC the hell out of it (if you can or want to ~4.0ghz max air). But if your board does support it then a multi-core core2 is what you want. A P4 is a waste of money and a PD is just two of them in one chip so I hope you can get a Core2 if you want to play Crysis.