Now, I am sure someone is asking "What about Overclocking". Luckily, these CPUs
have been put through the wringers by mad OCers. Intel has seen some mad
overclocks, 4.4 Ghz for the 840 EE on water. The Dual Cores are basically 2
Prescotts, so whatever the prescotts can do, so an the Dual Cores...BUT...you
have 2 Prescotts OVERCLOCKED IN THE SAME CASE ! 550W PSU and a good CPU HSF if
you want good results, though the Stock HSF will do 200-300 Mhz OK. But you will
need to vent that case. For AMD, the X2 has been doing 2.5-2.6 Ghz on Stock HSF
with minimal Vcore increases and 2.7-2.8 with a 3rd party HSF and a bit more
volts :) So, there is room for getting the cheaper Dual Cores up to some good
speeds with a little help, and as seen from the pricing, it can be very
worthwhile.
Conclusion
We have asked our
readers in our
forum
of whether they will buy an Athlon 64 X2 or the Pentium D. We received a lot of
different opinions. User allenpan thinks that Dual Xeons are cheaper these days
and it is more worthwhile than getting Dual Core CPUs.
qrazi thinks that he will go for the cheaper solution and he prefers cooler
cores. He mentioned that AMD does almost everything better than Intel except in
video compression. He also said that AMD Dual Core solution don't share a single
800MHz bus and he supports the underdogs. Sebounet666 shares similar views with
qrazi. He prefers AMD solution as it can work with existing boards. The only
deterring factor could be the high price. offthefront feels that the Intel
solution might needs good cooling and Bismarck thinks the price for a Dual core
AMD is still cheaper than a Dual Xeon.
To conclude, I can say that Dual Core is worth it, if you have a use for it. As
time goes on, software will take advantage of it more and more, as seen by the
upcoming games that will be Multi Threaded. I have been using Dual CPU Systems
for many years and would never go back to Single CPUs. Until now, you needed a
lot of $$ for 2 CPUs, now, anyone with a mid range budget will be within reach
of a Dual CPU System. Being able to surf the Net while burning/encoding DVDs and
doing some word processing and perhaps an hour of Half Life 2 without shutting
down some Applications makes life so much easier, and I have not even mentioned
Folding once in this article ( oops, until now :D )
For someone looking at a budget computer with Dual Core, you will need to wait
for Intel to provide Motherboards at the same price as the AMD 939s else look to
AMD, 955 Chipsets as well as the NF4 solutions are too expensive for Budget
Buyers looking at a 820 or 830 based Computer. For power users, there is only
one direction to go, AMD. They have the fastest most modern Dual Core option,
and as a bonus it uses a lot less power and keeping it cool is not a problem.
For me, I have been looking at another Dual CPU System as a general backup
Computer and Folding Box, and the Intel 820 was looking a good buy. Sadly, the
lack of budget Motherboards has put that on hold, and I know a lot of potential
Intel buyers will feel the same way. Intel once again has launched a product
that is big on hype but falls over at the last hurdle, while AMD strolls past to
the finish line. Until that cheap Intel 945 Motherboard appears, AMD is your
best choice.
