[Solved] Pentium D 945 or Pentium Dual-Core E2180

Hi all!
I need some help.

a very good friend of mine is going a build a machine, with very low budget, and second-hand components.
since, he is using second-hand components, he has very limited options.
guys, please just tell me, which one of the microprocessors is better between these two: 'Intel Pentium D 945 (3.4 GHz, 4 MB cache)' and 'Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2180 (2.0 GHz, 1 MB cache)'?

he is going to use this PC for gaming, will hopefully put 4 GBs (or atleast 2 GBs) of RAM and a nice 3D card (hopefully NVIDIA 9000 series).

now, in this regard (gaming purpose), which one of these two microprocessors will be a better choice, keeping in mind the games of current era?
remember guys, he has no other options available for microprocessors.


just a side question, can Pentium D 945 compete with Pentium Core 2 Duo E4400 (2.0 GHz, 2 MB cache) in gaming performance?

Agreed! Even better get a e5200.

e2180 for sure. The Pentium D line generated a ton of heat, whereas the straight Pentium line runs cooler, more efficiently, and is designed better.

^That is unless you are trying to fry bacon on your CPU.

Thanks all.
sorry for my late response, but u guys have solved my problem.
now I'll definitely go for the Dual-Core
Thanks again.

LOL, nice catch there
well, it was a spontaneous reply..., since the friend is bit new in computing and is depending on my choices and reasons for buying PC components.

he can probably get it second hand for dirt cheap (thus not many options available)

Anyhows my gf has a 2180 in her rig, knowing me i OC'd it ofc.. got it up to 3.2 ghz with a dirt cheap p45 chipset mobo and 2 gig of 667 ram

Yes, 7850 is better than E2180 but you can say that a cpu is better than another one because of the bigger cache memory. D 945 has bigger cache memory than E5200 but still...E5200 is much better. The only thing that matters is real life test.

@ hefox, Im not recommending the cpu on the cache alone. Most anyone here that knows a little about processors know the architecture is where its at. Cache does play a limiting factor as you don't game with Celerons with their low cache even though its a Core 2 Duo Celeron.

@expee15, that's cool. Its only a suggestion anyway. I have both AMD and Intel and honestly I go for the best price/performance instead of AMD or Intel but that's how I roll.