Terrific article! While I've been "into" computers since the XT, and was easily able to stay up to date with the x86 family of processors over the years, I recently found myself swimming in questions about what the differences were between the different P4 CPU's and their AMD counterparts.

I really appreciated the detail, depth, and simplicity in your explainations and comparisons.

TOP NOTCH writing, research, and above all -- elaboration!

OMG the 820 ROCKS. Best bang for the buck EVER. Running one on an Abit AL8 FSB clock @250MHz PCIe@123Mhz (CPU3.5Ghz), 2Gb PQI PC4300 DDR2 and the numbers are incredible. From SiSoft Sandra benchmarks are:

CPU arithmatic: DhryALU 53002 MIPS/WhetFPU 4870 MFLOPS/ Whetisse2 20361 MFLOPS
CPU Multimedia: Integer x8 isse2 66390 it/s/Floatx4 isse2 131679 it/s
RAM bandwidth: Int Buff'd isse2 4882 MB/s/Float Bff'd isse2 4942 MB/s
Cache (combined index): 30378 MB/s

CPU rock solid 63C w/stock fan, no voltage adjustments.
Total cost of processor, memory, and board $750.
Great replacement for the Abit VP6/dual PIII 1.0 GHz that just crapped out on me!

After looking at all the overnight AMD fanboy responses, I have noticed something...

Instead of focusing on AMD's superior gaming performance, everyone is going on about power consumption now...

Why the hell? Do you really think it makes THAT much of a difference? Are you going to notice it on your bill? HELL NO. Are you going to notice the extra heat generated? HELL NO. Use a bigger fan.

Fanboys are stretching more and more....

What I really don't get is why TR has turned into such a haven for fanboys... The writing is pretty much totally opposite of this; TR is one of the few sites that don't hold a bias whatsoever.... But their readers sure as hell do.

Well one thing is true; it makes for entertaining reading in the morning! :)

General Response:

AMD seems to be solidly leading in performance, if not price. The X2 also has much better thermals, reducing cooling and power costs. While Intel chips lead a few benchmarks, most enthusiast apps favor AMD. The downside is a much higher cost of entry ($530 vs $240) and delayed availability.

For the overclocker, these new 820s seem to be an excellent deal. They're hitting 3.6 with stock cooling/voltage, well surpassing their $500+ sibling. PD 820 + 945P might become the next AXP 2500 + NF2.

Benchmarking:

All the review sites seem to be doing a great disservice to their readers on the gaming benchmarks. As a gamer, I want to see when systems become GPU/CPU limited and purchase accordingly. While benching at 640x480 is great for showing theoretical peaks and headroom, it's useless for today's buyer. Running at real resolutions (1280x1024 and up) an 6800GT-level hardware would give numbers that actually benefit purchasers.

In addition, I wish sites would include minimum FPS numbers in their benches. CPU choice means nothing if the minFPS is GPU limited on modern CPUs. I'd like to see some hard numbers.

Porkster:

Actual game and app benches are worlds better than 3DMark and PCMark. The former tell you how hardware is likely to run, the latter are interested in making all the hardware manufacturers happy. Look at 3DM03 results and the games released in '03, '04, and '05.

I personally use 3DMark for stress testing and troubleshooting, not any sort of buying decision.

Let me get it overwith now:

"AMD RULESZZZZZZZZ0RRRRRRSZZZZZZZ"

Just because a bunch of fanboys say something doesn't automatically make it untrue.

Looks like Intel Wins, bar AMD's good power usage.

I think in the future, benchmarks shouldn't include games that are tailored for AMD, as it give the wrong impression for those that aren't knowledgeable.

Example SiSoftware shows Intel winning the memory access speeds and other specifc hardware speeds, also Intel wins the best-of graphics/gaming formulas in the 3DMark grpahics motion tests proving that Intel is the platform for best future proof gaming. We all know the Intel range also have far better floating point calc rates than AMD range.

So if you're buying a system, you should be looking at an Intel platform based on the i955X mobo chipset, that way you will have the ability for dual core CPU's. Intel are the the all round performance platform and frontline in technologies for device interfaces like PCIe, DDR2, Sata II, etc.

.

OMG Scott good value???

The 820 is over 50% slower than the 4200 most of the time add in the expensive intel mobos/ and DDR2 ram price AMD 4200 still has superior price/performace platform. And superior performance. Those two rarley go together.

I'm working up spreadsheet details now...but this should serve to illustrate even the 840 is'nt competitive at all with X2's let alone 820..
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~smanning/pr.xls

Excellent review, as always. Only problem is that you chose the Olsen twins. :-p

It might take a little coaxing to get me back into the Intel camp after so long, but The low end 8x0 chips look pretty good considering its price and performance. I'll wait to see when they hit SFF systems.

Am I the only one who's tired of hearing about the "creamy smoothness" of HT/mulitcore computing? Can we come up with a new term? No? Oh well, anyway ...

In reality, the AMD X2's will probably be available before or at about the same time as the PD's, at least if you believe this article: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23519

I really have no interest in the PD, though, no matter how much (or little) it costs. I'd much rather have my cake and eat it too, with a multicore processor running at or close to the same speed as my current single core A64 3500+. I already have a S939 board, so I'm more than willing to just drop an X2 4200+ or, more likely, an X2 4400+ into it. I just can't bring myself to buy what's basically a slapped together product that Intel rushed out the door, no matter how cheap it is. At least the A64 was designed from the ground up with multiprocessing in mind. I guess if you just want multicore at any price then the PD 820 is okay, but I don't find it to be a very attractive product.

How about a poll on everyone's buying plans for the near future ( 3-6 months ) ?

1. Single core Intel
2. Single core AMD
3. Dual-core Intel
4. Dual-core AMD
5. Wait for lower Intel prices
6. Wait for lower AMD prices

Would Dr Evil terribly mind updating the decoder ring at http://techreport.com/cpu/ for the new Venice, Diego and Smithfield cores? There've been quite a few releases since its last update -- all the dual cores (Smithfield Pentium D 820, Pentium EE 840, Diego Athlon 64 X2 4200+, Athlon 64 X2 4800+) and all the Venice-cored Athlon 64s that have been released since then aren't in there. Also, none of the 1MB L2 64-bit Prescotts are in there (Pentium 4 3.xxF, now known as the Pentium 4 5x1J processors).

I'll buy an A64 system for the summer, and a P4 system for the winter.

#13, dragmor...Where did you get those prices? :)
Man, if the difference is only that much, I definitely know what I'm replacing my dual PIII setups with! Anyone interested in old PIII CPUs and SMP mobos? :)

As for the article, Maxim girl versus the Olsen twins?

Olsen twins = Pentium-D
Two Maxim girls = A64 X2

I'd rather have two Maxim girls, thanks.
: )

Yes, you pay a price premium for it, but I believe they're well worth the "performance".
; )

What about overclocking? I'm guessing the Athlon 4200+ can overclock to 2.6 GHz (an 18 percent overclock). So, that means that the 4200+ is about 50% faster than the 820 (which I'm assuming will not overclock -- "prove me wrong, kids, prove me wrong...").

When I upgraded from my 1.4 GHz Athlon to my current Athlon XP 2500+ (OC to 2.2 GHz), I was basically willing to spend $180 for a 50 percent increase in performance. So, by that convoluted logic, I should be willing to spend about that much more on an Athlon 4200+ than on an 820. Given the slight RAM and MB cost savings of the Athlon, plus the lower power requirements, I think that might just be enough to draw the two close enough for my inherent dislike of Intel to break the tie in AMD's favor.

Yeah, I'm working pretty hard here to justify the purchase of the 4200+ over the 820, but dagnabbit, I want that chip! I just hope AMD makes it available soon...

I would be very interested to know how the 820 compares to the 670 in WInDVD 6 with Trimension DNM enabled. I have currently a P4 2.8C with HT enabled and experience dropped frames in fast paced scenes. I wonder what the better choice would be for Trimension, dual core or high clockspeed. WinDVD uses the second thread, but it shows only half the load of the main thread in the task manager. Any videophiles out there that could offer some suggestions?

I think that the gaming difference is exagerated...I'd be much more interested in some benchmarks at resolutions that people actually use....at least 1600x1200, even if you don't have any aa/af applied....I think that you would see the difference in gaming shrink largely

Great review Scott. I just wished we could have seen if the 820 could overclock at all.

I think that Dell will sell the hell out of these chips. Don't we all agree that Dell DOES NOT cater to real gamers or the tech savy consumer?

If they did, they would have a line of Dell gaming systems based on AMD chips and call them the fastest gaming systems on the planet.

Instead, they maintain their friendship with Intel to keep the chips coming in at rock bottom prices and make money on the quantity of systems they sell.

I, like many of you, provide tech support to many family members and friends. Out of 50+ people, I can count on less then one hand the people who would know, care, or could even notice and slowness or performance weaknesses of the 820.

Hell, this chip would be great if a lot of the common desktop apps were really multi threaded, like virus scanning, email programs, anything that runs in the background, etc……as the biggest complaint I get about peoples systems is slowing down because of stuff like that sitting in the system tray.

P.S.
Over the last weekend, ZipZoomFly had a 2 x 1gb Geil DDR2 kit for $132, and I passed on it. Would have been nice to buy 2GB of DDR2 cheap and pair it up with a 820 or 830, just to check it out.

I'd like to see that 820 overclocked.

Oh, and that olsen girl needs a sammich. By that analogy, one of the PD's core is a Via Nehemiah.

Forget all these haters

"creamy smoothness"

is what makes the techreport (no dash) the TECHREPORT!!!

Scott, you seem to completely ignore the power/heat issues of the Pentiun D 820 in your conclusion. One of the most important concerns in a modern PC is noise, but you somehow forget about this when talking about the dual core Pentiums.

I expect the Pentium D processor, teamed up with the 945G chipset, to dominate the mid-range PC market once folks discover its virtues.

I don't see any virtues the Pentium D supposedly has for the mid-range market. I imagine the most frequently used demanding applications in this segment are games, with maybe some occasional media encoding. Else than that, you have office and internet. An efficient, cheap and quiet CPU like a 3200+ is far superior to any Pentium D for this.

For everything from corporate desktops to boxes for power users, from video editing workstations to home theater PCs, the Pentium D looks tough to beat.

No, it's extremely easy to beat, as Pentium D is the most power consuming chip around. Is that a joke about corporate desktops and especially HTPCs? I cannot imagine a WORSE chip than a Pentium D for this. Perfomance is much less important than noise in that kind of PCs.

So I absolutely disagree with your conclusion, but I am afraid people will fall to the marketing campain "two is better than one", when there are only a few enthusiasts and professionals who really need this (and they will opt for X2 I guess). Average Joe will wonder why he has to buy earplugs with his new PC, while see no difference in performance.

I think the biggest news of this review is the comparison of 3500+ vs. X2 4200+. These should have exactly the same cores and clocks and as you can see, gaming clearly benefit from dualcores in the case of A64.

I currently have a 2500 XP mobile in a first gen Nforce2 board running at 2.38ghz. I was mildly interested in the Pentium D as a cheap way of going dual core-until I read this review. Doesn't fare well against AMD at all.

I guess I'll run my 2500 XP for another year.

Still better than what I've got... a 2.4P4 so for the price it would be worth it if I didn't have to get a new MB, RAM, etc.

-LS

With X2 looking set to ship in a couple of weeks, I think I'll pass on the PD. Why make compromises on single-threaded when you can have it all?

What I really want to know is:
What does the 4400+'s extra cache offer over the 4200+?
What mobo's will actually recognise the X2? Yeah, yeah, I know that "they" say anything that supports FX should, but how about a list? I'd really be interested in s939 with AGP as I don't want to upgrade my video just yet, but if I have to I have to I guess.

That was absolutely the most sexist opening paragraph I have ever read on a tech website.

I laughed my ass off.

Somehow I think Intel execs wake up on mornings like this, read hardware reviews, and scream out loud, "OMFG, teh Thec Reprot must be destroyered!!!!"

At the moment I have to agree that Intel have produced a pretty impressive dual core chip, businesses are going to eat them up at this price. You have to think that their window of opportunity depends an awful lot on how AMD market lower clocked X2s, if AMD can get their new fab spitting out chips fast enough that they could meet the demand of lower priced x2s they will be able to destroy Intel.

Just taking the three game benchmarks as an example, if you look at the difference between the x2 4800+ and the x2 4200+ and then compare this to the performance of the 820 it shows that an x2 3000+ or even an x2 2400+ should be enough to offer the same gaming performance as the 820.

Let me benchmark the Maxim lady and I will get back to you

Let me get it overwith now:

"AMD RULESZZZZZZZZ0RRRRRRSZZZZZZZ"