A 4.1 GHz Dual Core at $130 - Can it be True?

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I read 13 pages of replies. Some people get it, some don't.

This is about bang for the buck. No AMD can touch this performance for the same price. No other Intel CPU that I've seen can either. If you have unlimited funds, by all means buy the best and overclock it to your heart's content. Most people have limited budgets and this is where this CPU blows away the competition.

According to the reviews that I've read about Vista, everyone will need to upgrade their machines drastically when they switch, or watch them slow to a crawl.

My wife and I own/operate a custom computer shop in AU. My own rig is a 3700+, 2X1g OCZ DDR500 Gold, BFG 6800U-OC (was X2 but one blew with the DFI NF4-DR SLI MB), currently Asus A8N-E, 600W OCZ Powerstream, and 2 x WD 200g SATA2 (RAID0). Also run a Creative Cambridge Soundworks 500W 5.1 sound system. I have Exos 2 water cooling on the CPU, GPU, and chipset. I've never liked the AMDs and mainly sell Intel P4 systems. AMD's lag while AV scans or any serious multitasking. We also took a beating from warranties on the socket 7 and some things are hard to forget. The A64s do run great for games and single apps, but I rarely do either. The 3700+ San Diego is an ok overclocker but nothing to write home about. I've yet to have a Pentium come back for repairs (knock on wood).

Now I just happen to have a couple Asus P5WD2 Premiums and 2x1g Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 laying around and collecting dust. I'm off to the supplier today to pick up a few of the 805s. Can't wait to see what I can get out of this baby with the water cooling and RAM. This will be my new personal system, which would have saved me $150AUD and run faster than the 3700+, even overclocked. The Dual Core is just another plus, with or without hyperthreading. For that performance and at that price, I couldn't care less about the electric bill nor if the CPU blows in a couple years. I also don't care about the Conroe right now. Sure it'll be faster and run cooler. It'll also cost 5X as much, not to mention $450AUD for a 975 chipset MB. For me, this is all about bang for the buck. Some day I'll go back to SLI or possibly crossfire with whatever happens to be the best vid cards at the time, but not worth considering at this point.

More importantly, I may be able to set up a Zalman cooler ($70AUD) with this 805 CPU ($170AUD) and DDR2 667 ($144AUD for 2X512) and build computers for our customers that run at 3.8ghz with Dual Core. All for about the same price as we've charged for a single core P4 3.0 in the past. I'll take my chances offering a 2 yr warranty for that price. The only thing under stress would be the CPU as the RAM and MB are designed to run at these settings.

This is a no brainer.
Pentium Extreme 965 (3.73ghz) = $1305AUD + GST = $1435.50AUD (I expect the Conroe to be similarly priced)

We sell our entire systems for about that. All of our customers are looking to save a dime where ever they can. This CPU allows us to have performance that most people couldn't afford until now. 🙂

Thanx TG for the great review and details. I've read this and many other newsletters for the last 10 years. This one may be the most profitable that I've read to date!
 
I agree with you on the fact that for the price it cannot be beat. I still say that the extra $60 is worth it for the 930. But if you cannot afford $60 then the 805 is an obvious choice. Intel is generally rock solid as far as reliability is concerned also.... I just still lean towards the 9XX for an insignifcant amount more $$$.... I don't disagree at all about the price to performance ratio of the 805.... I personally would opt for the 930. I am an AMD fan..... no not a fanboy.... the reason I am is due to my sitautions at the time, the prescotts had heat issues, so I built on AMD.... the dual core AMD cpu's are superior... and the price was not an issue.... so once again I built on AMD.... but recently I have been looking to build a 8XX or 9XX intel system.... they are inexpensive and overclock.... but, in all reality.... I can't really build a system around Conroe as it is not out yet, and even if it "works", it may be buggy.... in which case I would still need a new motherboard. But I tend to be more along the lines of it won't REALLY WORK with current motherboards all that well.... and until there is a plethera of Conroe motherboards out, I am not going to attempt to put one together that will "work" with Conroe.
 
I read 13 pages of replies. Some people get it, some don't.

This is about bang for the buck. No AMD can touch this performance for the same price. No other Intel CPU that I've seen can either. If you have unlimited funds, by all means buy the best and overclock it to your heart's content. Most people have limited budgets and this is where this CPU blows away the competition.

According to the reviews that I've read about Vista, everyone will need to upgrade their machines drastically when they switch, or watch them slow to a crawl.

My wife and I own/operate a custom computer shop in AU. My own rig is a 3700+, 2X1g OCZ DDR500 Gold, BFG 6800U-OC (was X2 but one blew with the DFI NF4-DR SLI MB), currently Asus A8N-E, 600W OCZ Powerstream, and 2 x WD 200g SATA2 (RAID0). Also run a Creative Cambridge Soundworks 500W 5.1 sound system. I have Exos 2 water cooling on the CPU, GPU, and chipset. I've never liked the AMDs and mainly sell Intel P4 systems. AMD's lag while AV scans or any serious multitasking. We also took a beating from warranties on the socket 7 and some things are hard to forget. The A64s do run great for games and single apps, but I rarely do either. The 3700+ San Diego is an ok overclocker but nothing to write home about. I've yet to have a Pentium come back for repairs (knock on wood).

Now I just happen to have a couple Asus P5WD2 Premiums and 2x1g Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 laying around and collecting dust. I'm off to the supplier today to pick up a few of the 805s. Can't wait to see what I can get out of this baby with the water cooling and RAM. This will be my new personal system, which would have saved me $150AUD and run faster than the 3700+, even overclocked. The Dual Core is just another plus, with or without hyperthreading. For that performance and at that price, I couldn't care less about the electric bill nor if the CPU blows in a couple years. I also don't care about the Conroe right now. Sure it'll be faster and run cooler. It'll also cost 5X as much, not to mention $450AUD for a 975 chipset MB. For me, this is all about bang for the buck. Some day I'll go back to SLI or possibly crossfire with whatever happens to be the best vid cards at the time, but not worth considering at this point.

More importantly, I may be able to set up a Zalman cooler ($70AUD) with this 805 CPU ($170AUD) and DDR2 667 ($144AUD for 2X512) and build computers for our customers that run at 3.8ghz with Dual Core. All for about the same price as we've charged for a single core P4 3.0 in the past. I'll take my chances offering a 2 yr warranty for that price. The only thing under stress would be the CPU as the RAM and MB are designed to run at these settings.

This is a no brainer.
Pentium Extreme 965 (3.73ghz) = $1305AUD + GST = $1435.50AUD (I expect the Conroe to be similarly priced)

We sell our entire systems for about that. All of our customers are looking to save a dime where ever they can. This CPU allows us to have performance that most people couldn't afford until now. 🙂

Thanx TG for the great review and details. I've read this and many other newsletters for the last 10 years. This one may be the most profitable that I've read to date!
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100%. Several people here think this article is all about the performance of this CPU, but it about performance to price ratio. I am a PC gamer on a tight budget and I can only afford so much.
$1000 is a lot for me to spend.

Weskurtz81: If you want people to understand you, you need to not use so many "..." EDIT: What I mean is don't use so many periods, lol.
It makes it nearly impossible for us to get the point of what you are saying. Just a friendly tip. :)

Oh, and the multiplier on the 930 is 15x where as the 805 is 20x (Highest multi. in it's class). Makes a very big difference in overclocking.
http://images.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores/cputable_big.gif
 
The fsb of the 805 makes the largest difference.... not really the multi. The 805 with the lower FSB makes it easier to OC on less expensive mobos since they are reated to run @ 800.... if I remember correctly.... as for the " " they make sense to me, but I understand that not everyone would understand what I am trying to convey. Normally the " " mean that it might work, but not really stable or work well.... that is where I come up with it might "work" but not really that well. Point taken though.... I will forgo the quotes and just spell it out, would be much easier in a face to face conversation for someone to understand what i am saying, but a little more difficult on text.

Not saying the higher multi doesn't help.... but I would think the FSB would make the largest difference. Since you are basically putting the mobo back to stock with high OC's.
 
I have a new question to pose. How much is cheap CPU water cooling.
I looked into it in the past and thought it was too much work and money. But that was a long time ago. How hard is it to setup now and how much does it cost?
 
one thing I have learned about playing with water cooling on some other systems.... cheap water cooling, in order for it to be better than good air cooling, is normally loud... good efficient quiet water cooling, is normally more bulky.... you would have to choose the lesser of two evils.... size or decibels...
 
the thermaltake bigwater 745 would be nice at $160 stay away from the bigwater SE for $125

I have not heard much on the $130 GIGABYTE GH-WIU01 Liquid Cooling System

I do have a COOLER MASTER AQUAGATE Mini R120 Liquid Cooling System it was $90 not really sure if i want to put it on the d805 yet.

Corsair Nautilus 500 Liquid Cooling Kit for $150 is a good deal have seen it on a d805 at 4ghz. Id choose this or the 745 next
 
Hello everybody... I too have been following this forum topic since the first page and I too decided to jump on this great deal

Just today I received my Intel 805 and a basic MB - ASUS P5RD1-VM (onboard nic,snd,vid) and I had a stick of 512MB PC3200 Mem From Kingston that I had laying around... well just got it all up and running and Im actually typing on this new setup and my speeds are at 3.4Ghz at 170FSB @ 20x stable on the stock heatsink/fan I could push it to 178FSB which is 3.560GHZ but that is my limit on this board/setup since I cannot do any faster memory I suppose .... and the only setup I can change on this MB is the FSB so this is the best I can do ... I think??

Well I do have a question for you all (stupid question mabye?) windows xp is all going great but the processor speed is showing up in SYSTEM PROPERTIES is Pentium(R) D CPU 2.66GHz next line 3.40GHZ, 448MB of RAM (some is shared with the onboard video I know) and then I ran CPU-Z and it showed all my information and it states that each processor is running at 3.40GHz .... well I am wondering why is windows system properties showing the cpu @ 2.66ghz? and Device Manager also shows the Processors @ 2.66ghz? but Bios states speed at 3.40ghz and CPU-Z states 3.40ghz???

thanks very much for your info .... and I do recommend this Processor to anyone on a tight buget and want to be able to get a big bang for the $$$
 
Since I just learned that the Asus P5WD2 Premium is being phased out for the 975 chipset, I ordered a P5WD2-E Premium today. Should be here Monday. If all goes according to plan, I'll post my results with air about mid-week. If it performs as I'm hoping, I'll change over to my system with water cooling. Really hope this works, as the system will cost only $40AUD more than our current 3.0 single core system to build.

Also couldn't find the Zalman fan in stock so went with a Gigabyte G-Power Pro CPU cooler ($85AUD). 120mm fan, so expect the results to be at least as good, if not better. I have a Gigabyte 3-D Rocket Pro (80mm) on our server computer, but have been very happy with it and want to keep it there.

For cheap water cooling I can't help. I think I have over $800AUD invested in the Koolance Exos 2 with the 4 heatsinks. The difference was well worth it to me as it isn't nearly as messy looking as a DIY and performs as well as any DIY I've seen. Has 2x120mm fans with 1-10 speed settings, monitors up to 3 components, has auto shut off, compression fittings (instead of those lousy hose clamps) and is external. Gets a little noisy at 7 and up, but only need that when under a full load/benchmarking. 🙂
 
so...what is the IDEAL ram (speed, cas, brand) to do the overclock?
Click to expand...

DDR2 1000 with low timings and low CAS. Good luck finding that though.
You'd be best going with DDR2 800 for now, its cheaper and more reliable.

If it was me I'd pick these, OCZ Platinum 2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 800:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227089

Thats a little expensive. So if you're low on cash go with 2x 512MB.

Back to my old question, but I'll be more specific now:
Whats the best CPU cooling solution you can buy for under $70?

I have a huge case (Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS) and noise is not an issue.
 
so...what is the IDEAL ram (speed, cas, brand) to do the overclock?
Click to expand...

DDR2 1000 with low timings and low CAS. Good luck finding that though.
You'd be best going with DDR2 800 for now, its cheaper and more reliable.

If it was me I'd pick these, OCZ Platinum 2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 800:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227089

Thats a little expensive. So if you're low on cash go with 2x 512MB.

Back to my old question, but I'll be more specific now:
Whats the best CPU cooling solution you can buy for under $70?

I have a huge case (Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS) and noise is not an issue.

thanks
 
My wife allowed me to install and test an 805 on her computer. I'm too tired to write a lengthy report now. Will do so tomorrow.

But I will say that I was able to boot stably to 4.1GHz on air, with Corsair Value Select DDR2 533 on an Asus P5WD2-Premium and the Gigabyte G-Power Pro CPU cooler. New memory dividers show up in the Asus BIOS each time the FSB is raised. So I wouldn't go out and buy expensive RAM just yet. I can't see where it would be necessary. Probably won't try the DDR2-800 until I get the P5WD2-E next week, and that'll be with water cooling as well. 🙂
 
Just thought i would share my new rig...

After reading this review i thought why not try it i know a manager at fry's electronics in socal so i went and got some good deals ill share what i got with you guys.

Case: Antec LanBoy
PSU: Antec TruePower 500w 2.0
MOBO: ASUS P5DL2
CPU: INTEL PD 805 (smithfield?)
HEATSINK: ZALMAN the big one for 70bucksm CPsomething
HD: Dual Maxtor 250GB SATA 7200RPM
RAM: KingStin Value Ram 2gb pc2-4200
Video: PNY 6600 PCI-E 256mb ($70 After Rebate 😀)

So far its running flawlessly at 3.82ghz without any major heating problems max load i get 67C idle about 50C let me know what you guys think.
 
that is pretty hot.... but I guess it has a little more room before it throttles.... good luck with that. Also.... good luck with the rolling brown out's which will soon be happening in your area :wink:
 
Here's my air cooling results for anyone interested.
System:
2.66 805 Dual Core (exact same numbers as the TG review, BX80551PE2666FNSL8ZH)
Asus P5WD2-Premium
2x512 Corsair Value Select DDR2-533
Gigabyte G-Power Pro CPU cooler ($85AUD wholesale, so should be under $70 retail in the USA)
PowerColor X300
2x160G Seagate SATA (RAID 0)
Antec 550W True Power

Since I was using the wife's computer with same MB and HDs, no format was necessary. Fired right up at 2.66GHz.

At each change, I ran Sisoft Sandra '05 and benchmarked the CPU Arithmetic, CPU Multi-Media, Memory Bandwidth, and Cache and Memory (graph). Then I ran 3dmark05 for an hour, and PCmark05 for another hour to verify load temps and stability (won't bother with those scores since the X300 is crap). I used CPUZ Version 1.33.1 to verify CPU and RAM settings, and Asus's PC Probe 2 to monitor temps and voltages. My goal was to keep the memory timings as tight as possible. The Corsair Value select SPD provides timings for 200MHz (3-3-3-8 ) and 266MHz (4-4-4-11). At every CPU setting other than 3.6, the BIOS provided a choice (always the first number under 532MHz) to use the 4-4-4-11 timings at 3:4 FSB😀RAM, which I thought was very good. However at 3.6, the timings were backed off by BIOS to 5-6-6-18, 2:3 FSB😀RAM.

Because TG's article ran through the initial testing, I didn't think it was necessary to re-invent the wheel. So I went straight from stock settings to 180FSB/3.6GHz, 240MHz on RAM. Booted up fine with default voltages. The CPU fan was left on the lowest setting. Idle temp was 45C and full load temp was 52C. Perfectly stable, although the memory timings weren't as tight as I was hoping for. (Changing to DDR2-667 or DDR2-800 might solve this issue, but I'll find out later.)
3.6GHz Sisoft Sandra '05 results:
CPU Arithmetic = Whetstone 19583 - Dhrystone 5186/8935
CPU Multi-Media = Integer 40608 - Floating Point 48133
Memory Bandwidth = INT 4478 - Float 4470MB/s

At 3.8GHz (190FSB) and 253MHz RAM (4-4-4-11), I had to up the CPU voltage slightly. I went to 1.45 and it booted up fine repeatedly. Ran the same tests and found it stable. Temps were identical, 45C @ idle and 52C under load.
CPU Arithmetic = 20591 - 5469/9425
CPU Multi-Media = 42841 - 50807
Memory Bandwidth = 4735 - 4720
Nice numbers for a 2.66 CPU! Of course I had to see how far it would go. 🙂


At 4.0GHz (200FSB), I apparently forgot to write down the benchmark numbers. I had to up the CPU voltage to 1.5 at this time to get it to boot. Also had to raise the CPU fan to about 2500 RPM (still very quiet) to hold the same temps. Idle was at 45C, but now load jumped to 66C. Once booted, it was still very stable through all benchmarks. This proves to me that either the Gigabyte fan is superior to the Zalman, or my CPU is a tad better than the one used by TG. Since the CPU is the same batch number, I believe the fan is the difference.

Now I get greedy. 4.1GHz and 274MHz on RAM (still 4-4-4-11).
System still booted at 1.5V. However I needed to max out the CPU cooler to keep the temps in check. Idle temp is now 48C, however for some reason the highest load temp was actually lower than 4.0GHz, now at 62C. There was still no thottling back by the CPU and the system remained stable through all benchmarks.
And this is where the test scores jumped above every other CPU on the market (with the exception of CPU Arithmetic Whetstone), much to my delight. 🙂
CPU Arithmetic = 21654 - 5911/10173
CPU Multi-Media = 46247 - 54818
Memory Bandwidth = 5117 - 5098
These results lead me to believe that the expense of better RAM just isn't justified. These RAM scores are much better than anything on Sisoft Sandra, and the Cache and Memory graph was exceptionally better. However, the Gigabyte fan is 40 decibels at full speed. Although it seemed to adequately cool the CPU, the noise would drive me nuts on a daily basis.

4.2GHz and 280MHz on RAM required another voltage increase, to 1.625V. The system booted fine and was again quite stable (no BSOD). However, this is where the CPU began to throttle back during benchmarks. Idle temp was 52C. Load temps jumped to 72C. Benchmark scores were lower (CPU Arithmetic 14000-16000) for this reason. I have a screen shot of the system running at this speed and will post a link to our website for anyone interested, once I get it uploaded.

This concludes my air cooling tests. Might have been able to boot at 4.3, but I don't see the sense if it won't run without throttling back.

I have set the CPU to 3.8GHz because that's where we seem to get the best results for RAM and can run the CPU cooler slow enough to make it inaudible. The wife has been decoding movies, ripping, burning, running AVG and putting through the wringer all day. She'll keep this system as is. The only noticable disadvantage is a slight lag that comes and goes while AVG is scanning and multi-tasking at the same time. I assume this is from the lack of hyperthreading. However, considering this CPU is much faster than her 3.2, and the CPU with cooler was cheaper than the 3.2, its a small price to pay. Seems faster to me than my 3700+ San Diego as well, which cost too much to begin with IMO and lags a lot more with AVG running.

I expect to have the water cooling system set up around the end of next week and will post the results from that:
266GHz 805 (same model numbers as above)
Asus P5WD2-E Premium
2 x 1g Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800
2 x 200g WD SATAII (RAID 0)
300g Maxtor SATA (backup)
BFG 6800U-OC
Creative Cambridge Soundworks 500w 5.1 surround
OCZ Powerstream 600W
Exos2 water cooling

Should make for an interesting electricity bill this month! 🙂

Again, I can't thank Tom's Hardware enough for making their review public.
Also many thanx to my wife for not making me wait a few more days to test this CPU. ;-)
 
Well I traded my Pentium 640 3.2Ghz CPU (single core) for the D805 and have overclocked it without hassle so now I have a to 3.6 Ghz dual core, very happy - hopefully it will last!! it has only been stable for a week or so now. Of course it's still not fast enough 🙂

Definetely faster for tasks and beats paying $1141 (NZD), $750 (USD ish) for a Pentium D960 or similar.

Info for others in this situation:

Running on a ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe motherboard.

Using generic transend ram at DDR2 533. That ram doesn't like running faster than DDR2 533 as it's pretty budget I think.

CPU temp is about 42 degrees C. when idle, up to 60 C when fully engaged.

CPU core voltage is set to 1.400

thanks for the info Toms.
 
I purchased the ECS c19-A and it will be here WED. I'll let you know how the overclock goes on this cheap SLI ready mobo. I have read nothing but good reviews about it, lets just hope it isn't hype
 
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