The Pentium D: Intel's Dual Core Silver Bullet Previewed

By Patrick Schmid
published

Pentium D Pricing

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ProcessorPer 1,000
Pentium D 820 (2.8 GHz)$241
Pentium D 830 (3.0 GHz)$316
Pentium D 840 (3.2 GHz)$530

These numbers are not official, but it is likely that they won't change much.

Enhanced SpeedStep

The average thermal loss of the Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition processors will likely be higher again than earlier models, so it is fortunate that Intel did not forget to give them its SpeedStep technology. After enabling this feature in the BIOS and changing the Windows energy profile to 'mobile/portable', the system will be able to dynamically adjust the clock speed according to the current workload. However, we would love to see lower minimum clock speeds in order to further decrease thermal loss and energy consumption.

You need to enable the profile for mobile computers in order to use SpeedStep. All the settings below can be set independently.

Patrick Schmid
2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • DaveF1953
    How much can the Extreme Edition be had for now? $40? Sounds like a deal to me. Although, older, hotter, and slower in the long run. Best bet now. No?
    Reply
  • wild9
    I'd just go AMD or Core 2, the former having a much lower power draw and great overclocking potential than what you have here. My relative used to run Intel Extreme Editions like this, and the power draw was immense, he had to use water cooling. In the end he ditched it and got AMD. Not trying to say one is better than the other all the time (ie for media encoding the Intel was great), just some ideas to consider. Cheap dual-core AMD's based on AM2 are hard to beat at the moment.
    Reply