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

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Thanks for the feedback everyone. I am guessing CPU-Z is probably right as it is corroborated by the bios.

I am now rock solid at 3.8 Ghz with an aquagate mini120 cooler and an EVGA 680i MB. Voltage is showing 1.336 in cpu-z and bios, but my bios are set to about 1.38. I am not too concerned since I am idling at about 47 C, and at 100% utilization w/ Orthos after a couple of hours, my temps peak between 72 and 73 C. Pretty warm, but w/in what THG was experiencing, and no errors or crashes.

I have not upgraded to the latest bios as I have heard a lot of horror stories about them. I really am impressed with the 680i. I think that since it is so new, there are going to be a lot that have issues. I must have gotten one of the good ones. Unfortunately, that is how it goes with new boards. The early adopters are the testers.... I had a much worse experience with an Asus board.

I will definitely be saving for a Core 2 Duo, or a Quad CPU, and an 8800 GTX. Sounds like that is the sweet spot right now.

Thanks again and have a happy new year.
 
Sounds about right. We have 3 805D's. All require 1.425v to be stable at 3.8GHz, but run at 3.6GHz with 1.375v. No real temperature increases under full load until we go above 1.45v, as the highest I've seen is 64C. So although 72-73C is a little on the warm side, as long as you're stable you should be fine.

Glad you got it sorted out and happy new year. 🙂
 
So much for internal registers. I haven't had an 805D on a motherboard that has default voltage that high, and never had any problems getting 3.6GHz with stock settings. :)
 
I just wanted to email anyone who tried this, mine's been online now for one year and it's worked better than any out-of-the-box computer I have owned....

Basic specs:

running at 3506 Mhz
Zalman fan
three other fans including an expansion slot exhaust fan
2 GB OCZ Gold
ATI Raedon X1600 video

CPU temp never goes above 66C! :)
 
well the 4300 is sort of the new 805 in my opinoin a well OCed unit can easily but a 64 - 6600 to shame.

and i would go for the 4300 as it is cheap and will outperform a 805 with its full OC when the 4300 is stock
 
After a year of running 3 805d's, 2 have died. Both were replaced under warranty but just goes to show that overclocking will kill the CPU faster. The one running at 4.1GHz actually lasted a bit longer than the one running at 3.8GHz on air. Oh well, they're still a damned good CPU for the price.

The 4300 is a good overclocker too, but won't fit on every motherboard that the 805d will. We have a 955 and 975 board that won't run C2D's.
 
For the price, they still are not worth it if you are building a new system. They are priced the same as a X2 3600, and the 3600 is a superior CPU. Even if you are upgrading a current Intel based system, the 4300 at a little less than double the cost would yield much better results with MUCH less power consumption.

wes
 
Power consumption is a myth. You won't see dollars off your yearly electrical bill from a CPU. The real benefit of the lower nm is less heat, which translates into longer life and better efficiencies.

The 3600 X2 is nowhere near as good a CPU as the 805D. This entire thread on the 805D is about overclocking. The 805D will overclock to speeds that the 3600 X2 can only dream of, with the stock cooler.

Anyone who built a system at the time this article was written would need a new motherboard to run the E4300.

But if I were building a new system today and wanted bang for the buck, I'd go with a E6320 with 4mb cache and 1066 FSB over the E4300 with 2mb cache and 800 FSB. I've got several E6320s running at 3.0GHz with the stock Intel fans, so is just as overclockable as the E4300. The extra $30 AUD for the E6320 is well worth it.
 
With the 805D running at max OC, which is around 4ghz, It will be drawing over 200W. Now, you have to buy a more expensive PSU, and have a more expensive cooling solution. So, these supposed budget builds will end up spending more to power and cool the damn thing. As for performance at Max oc, the 805D would have to maintain ATLEAST a 1ghz advantage to trade blows but still lose more benchmarks. It needs 1.2-1.4 ghz to win all benchmarks by a thin margin. So, with a 4.1 ghz OC on the 805, and a 3.0-3.1 ghz OC on the X2 3600, the 3600 would be the best choice. Not to mention, you are going to fry that 805 leaving OC'ed that high for to long. How many threads have you seen in here of people with dead 805's? They are everywhere, those chips couldn't withstand the heat and power draw.

wes
 
With the 805D running at max OC, which is around 4ghz, It will be drawing over 200W. Now, you have to buy a more expensive PSU, and have a more expensive cooling solution. So, these supposed budget builds will end up spending more to power and cool the damn thing. As for performance at Max oc, the 805D would have to maintain ATLEAST a 1ghz advantage to trade blows but still lose more benchmarks. It needs 1.2-1.4 ghz to win all benchmarks by a thin margin. So, with a 4.1 ghz OC on the 805, and a 3.0-3.1 ghz OC on the X2 3600, the 3600 would be the best choice. Not to mention, you are going to fry that 805 leaving OC'ed that high for to long. How many threads have you seen in here of people with dead 805's? They are everywhere, those chips couldn't withstand the heat and power draw.

wes
Click to expand...

I don't know where you're getting your info from, but we test all these systems ourselves. Our results don't reflect your claims.

My wife has had her main computer with an 805D running 24/7 for the past 18 months at 4.0GHz with a generic Codegen 400w PSU that came in her $50 case and a Gigabyte 3D Rocket that we paid $30 for. The case/PSU are about 3 years old and have run a few different configurations with no problem.

The 805D will run 3.6GHz with stock cooling and still walk on a 3600 X2 on benchmarks and in real time. The 805D will also multi-task like a champ, where any AMD CPU struggles with anything more than 1 program at a time. AMD is fast for games, if that's all you do. I've compared my own 805D benchmarks on PC Pitstop forum with an overclocked 4800 X2 and even beat that, although it was close.

Granted, now the 3600 X2 is pretty cheap. I think they're priced now at what they should have been all along. At the time this article was written, we paid $130 for an 805D and over $300 for a 3500 X2, and about $450 for 3800+ San Diegos. And these are wholesale prices. I believe the 805D was listed on newegg in the USA at the time for $105.

My son's rig ran an overclocked 3800+ for about 6 months before it died. The 805D soundly beat the AMD in all benchmarks when overclocked to 3.6GHz let alone 4.0GHz.

I was not aware that there were threads about failing 805Ds. I actually posted that 2 of ours had failed because I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere else. Both of our fried 805Ds lasted about a year, and both were left on 24/7. I've had no better luck with AMDs whether overclocked or not. I've had 1- 3500+ Winchester and 2- 3800+ San Diegos that died in just over 6 months. One of our 805Ds is still plugging along at 4.0GHz for about 18 months now and has outlasted every AMD CPU that we bought around the same time.

This is why we're no longer selling AMD systems. These 2 805Ds are the first Intel CPUs that have ever failed on us, including P3 and Prescott. We've never, never had an AMD CPU last for 2 years.
 
You can actually go back through this entire thread and read the info on this.

Your claims on performance are incorrect.

If you compare a 2.4ghz X2 to a 3.6ghz PD 9XX, the X2 pretty much stomps the PD even though the D has a 1.2ghz advantage.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=467&model2=436&chart=190
The pentium D wins the synthetic benchmarks, but that is really about it with exception to a couple that it won. The X2 even won the multitasking benchmarks.

Now, OC your Pentium D 805 to what is pretty much max without crazy cooling, 4ghz.... and then OC the X2 3600 to it's max(which you can do on a good air cooler) 3-3.1ghz.... and the X2 will beat it in just about any benchmark you choose to perform, with the exception of maybe just a couple.

You don't mention whether or not you OC'ed the X2s? Leaving one at stock, and OCing the other to compare them is not a fair comparison at all. If you going to compare, compare them equally.

Wow, that is pretty crazy the bad luck you have had with AMD cpu's. I have an AMD system that still runs which is about 8 years old. Not to mention, all of the OC'ing I have done on my roughly 10 other AMD rigs, I have only fried two, but they were my fault. One, I bumped the voltage way to high, and the other, the HS was not on properly.

People in the forums have posted many times about OC'ing 805's and having them die. I don't personally frequent those threads, but I have seen the topics many times. They are probably gone by now, along with the buzz about that CPU.

As far as the power draw of the cpu, I once again can post the link if you.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores/page14.html

Actually all of the info I was stating is actually in the thread already if you care to wade through all of the posts. I posted that link from page one.
Like I said earlier in the the thread, sure, it's "cool" to pay that little for the CPU and OC it, but, if you were going with a PD, my opinion would be to buy a 9XX if you could spare the little extra change. They will OC higher on less power and create less heat.

Also, if you are folding(which I do), it would cost me around $25-$30 a month to run a PD 805 @ 4-4.1GHZ full load 24/7. Where as, running at stock it would cost me about half that(@ .09c per KWH). The X2 3600 would probably cost about $10 per month less to run at max OC than the PD 805.

Savy?

wes
 
The 3600 X2 is nowhere near as good a CPU as the 805D. This entire thread on the 805D is about overclocking. The 805D will overclock to speeds that the 3600 X2 can only dream of, with the stock cooler.
Click to expand...

WTF? You overclock the 805D to 4GHz, then overclock the 3600 X2 to 2.9GHz and watch it tear the 805D apart while using less than half the power.
 
sealboy,

your right, and this info has been hashed over and over again in this thread. It is my opinion that if anyone could have afforded a Pentium D 9XX during that era, before Core 2, that the 920 would have been a much better choice than the 805. It would OC over 4ghz on air, and would use much less power. The 805 was good for people who simply could not afford anything else.

Today, the 805 argument is completely dead in every category other than the Core 2 upgrade path. It doesn't win on price, performance, or power consumption. Back then, it would win in the price arena, but that was it.

Thanks for chiming in sealboy.

wes
 
Your chart only shows each CPU at stock speeds, which has nothing to do with my comparisons.

I did say that every CPU I mentioned was overclocked, which was the entire idea of this thread from the start. I even reduced the 805D to 3.6GHz against the 3600 X2 fully overclocked (don't remember the exact GHz, but it was as fast as it would go and still pass Prime95 stress tests), and still beat it handily.

I'd rerun the tests and post the results, but every AMD CPU we had in that range is now dead.

The 3600 X2 argument is just as dead as the 805D as neither are being manufacturered anymore. Whatever you find for either CPU is old stock.
 
Sure, they are at stock speeds, but they maintain roughly the same difference performance at each clock. Hence, a 1.2-1.4 ghz advantage will always yield roughly the same results. It's the CPU architecture that makes the CPU perform the way it does, not so much the clock speed. A 4 ghz 805 will be slower than a 3ghz X2 3600, just as much as a 2.8ghz 805D will be slower than a 2.8ghz X2 3600(or 2.9ghz 3600 for the 65nm versions). The performance difference will remain roughly the same between the two. Like I said, the 805 needs to maintain a 1.2-1.4 ghz advantage to be competitive.

As far as AMD not making the 65nm X2 3600, can you produce some literature on this? I for one don't see why they would have stopped making them, and also have not read any info on this.

Also, I personally ran tests on a Pentium D and my X2 3800, and my X2 smoked it, both OC'ed(the max OC on my 3800 was only 2.75 though).

I use that chart as a basis because of the reasons I already posted. And, what I am saying is true, you can look it up just about anywhere. The only place the 805 might be faster would be synthetics, but the X2 will beat it in about 90% of the other benchmarks if not more. It's a fact, not my opinion.

wes
 
This is from another thread and pretty sums it up, feel free to visit the thread though.

Over here in New England, electricity runs at $0.19 a kilowatt-hour. The D805 at 4+ Ghz would easily be taking 100W+ extra from both the CPU and m/b. That means you'd have wasted $100 of electricity after using the computer for 5200 hours.
Click to expand...

Actually, I think THG measured it at 200w+.

OC'ing the D805 to 3.5GHz - 4.0GHz is great for bragging rights, in the end it'll perform like a dog to the Athlons and Core 2 Duos.

Due to the 200w+ power consumption just for the CPU, it will be necessary to buy a pretty power and reliable power supply. Forget about $100 for watercooling. I'm no expert, but I've read a lot of people warning against using cheap $100 - $125 watercooling solutions.

Too much trouble to avoid using an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or a Core 2 Duo E6300.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Pentium-805-faster-conroe-ftopict199691.html
 
Literature? No. If you don't want to take my word for it I can live with that. I know what I know and no one else will ever know all that I know. You can either agree with me or be wrong. (that's sarcasm in case someone takes it seriously) :)

I'm a system builder in Australia. I have 14 systems on the floor currently with various configurations of CPU and RAM. We're constantly testing, testing, and testing some more. Results are posted as we determine importance and as time permits.

We have direct suppliers for AMD and Intel, both of which only supply what the companies are currently producing. We wouldn't have it any other way as supporting a CPU that is no longer being produced is a problem for system builders in that we have to wait for old components to be shipped internationally (sucks when you advertise on-site 48 hour warranties). We're actually much further ahead than retail stores in the USA in that regard because I know before a company stops producing a model that its going to happen from these suppiers, who are in direct contact with the mother company on a daily basis. For AMD/Intel, its all about making a profit to continue research. Neither company is making any profit from selling 2-5 year old technology. Neither company really wants to cater to the end user who wants the cheapest CPU they can overclock to match the latest technology.

The 805D and 3600 X2 haven't been on our suppliers' lists for months for this reason. AU suppliers don't carry big inventories like the USA retail stores because they have to pay import tax and GST, which is also partly why our prices are inflated in comparison. Buying more CPUs than they can sell in a month is a losing proposition as they can't get their investment back when prices drop due to new technology.

AMD is currently still producing a few Semprons: 3000, 3200, 3400 and 3400. They are producing only the 3200 and 3500 in single core A-64s. Then they are producing the 3800, 4200, 5000, 5200, 5400, 5600 and 6000 in dual core in A-64. The older/slower models are being phased out because their new nomenclature is on the horizon and the low end will become the A-64 dual cores. That can be found on Google easily. It remains to be see if Sempron will continue or not, but my guess is no because they've already whittled down the line considerably.

Intel is the same. Only producing 4 Celerons, 4 Pentium Ds (925, 935, 950 and 960), and then it jumps to C2D and quads. The Penryn chips are on the horizon and the Nehalem is right behind it. Again, it remains to be seen if the Celeron and Pentium D will continue or not, but again my guess is no and that the C2D will become their low end before long.


Sorry, but I don't agree with that article nor your results at all. Let's take one example. Installing Windows XP Pro, from the time I click network settings button until the enter username window (I love this test as its one of the most relevant to speed of any that I've seen and is never used by anyone on reviews):
805D @ 4.0 GHz = 9 mins 40-55 seconds (done 5 times).
3800 X2 San Diego @ 3.15GHz = 13 mins 10-40 seconds (done 5 times). E6400 @ 3.2 GHz = 8 mins 40 seconds to 9 mins 5 seconds (done 5 times).

That's real time. That's what most people care about. That's what counts.

While clock for clock is all fine and dandy, memory comes into the equation for overall performance because of the difference between on-chip memory controllers and separate memory contollers on the motherboard. The higher the FSB goes, the better the memory performs on an Intel system too. Not so with an AMD. Thus the current Intel systems always perform better overall with higher OCs than the AMD system does. A person can argue that this is more than CPU, but actually it's not as the CPU determined the overall outcome.

I have a E6400 on my main system overclocked to 3.2GHz with Crucial DDR2-800 @ 4-3-3-8. The wife has the 805D overclocked to 4.0GHz with Corsair Value Select DDR2-533 @ 4-3-3-8. Real time for decoding, encoding, and file copying are within the ballpark (20-40 seconds) on both systems, even though mine cost heaps more. There's no way one system walks on the other for most applications, and both will walk on anything less than a 4800 X2 for most applications. There is a difference, but its only a seconds and hardly noticeable when the entire procedure takes 15 mins.

Sure, my system will beat hers handlily in FPS games and most AMD systems will also give it a heckofa run for its money in that situation, but then no one in our house plays FPS games so we couldn't care less.

The 805D is still a bargain and a great performer for the price, any way you slice it. And no AMD chipset on the market to date will multi-task at the same level as an Intel 3.0 single core with hyperthreading, let alone a Pentuim D or C2D. Again, gamers don't care about this, but then most of the world is not gamers and does care.

Benchmarks are great if you understand what information they actually provide. My experience includes synthetics benchmarks and real time and does not reflect your claims. In fact, my results are totally the opposite of your claims. You've seen my real time results, now here's my benchmark results, which you can use to prove that a 3600 X2 is faster.. or not. Pay particular attention to the memory scores, which blow away any of AMD's:

http://oc.ultramaxcc.com.au/

The new Intels are giving up this advantage for memory controllers on the chipsets, like AMD has done for years. It remains to be seen if this is an overall better system or not, but there can be no doubt that there are advantages and disadvantages of on-chip memory controllers. The bottleneck changes from one point to another, but will always exist. Significant advances in CPU speed are necessary just to break even with the current effect on memory with separate memory controllers.

As for power consumption, when AMD made a faster CPU their marketing emphasis was on speed. Now that Intel is currently the leader of speed, AMD has focused marketing on power consumption, forcing Intel to address it as well. Bottom line is that I've seen no difference in my electric bill whether we run 65nm or 130nm CPUs, and unlike most here we run many computers 24/7. While your math is all good, the end results don't support it. I saw a considerable difference when we added a plasma TV though. Me thinks some people just buy into the marketing ploys when they see what they want to see and disregard the rest. :)

You keep posting links to TG. I take every TG review with a grain of salt as it's obvious to some of us that TG is in business to slant whatever company they're reviewing at the time toward looking good, which is easily done. Unfortunately, TG's editors have little to no technical knowledge which makes them useless in their roles. TG has been criticised for almost every article for the past 2 years for good reason. Do your own tests and post those results. I'll gladly do the same with whatever hardware we have in house at the time. :)
 
Sounds like a plan, I will do some benchies, and you can do the same.... and I will get back with you in PM with some results.... out of time will post back later.

wes
 
Oops....looks like I started an AMD/Intel spat here....or perhaps its more of a philosophical spat....I really don't care!

I kind of chuckle at those who were so obsessed with running this chip (the 805D of course) to the absolute maximum...no wonder they burned out! I realized that 3.5 Mhz is perfectly fine to run anything I want quite well (at least for the last year)....it works very well, and it doesn't get too hot (relatively speaking....IIRC, I am outside the factory specs for temps, but not too much)...so whatever...I jsut wanted to report that this idea CAN work successfully, and just like anything, one shouldn't push any issue too much...
 
http://www.burntware.com/dc/
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores/page35.html

If you look at the above links, it will show you that a Pentium D 805 @ 4ghz is roughly equivalent to a 2.6ghz AMD cpu. They trade blows, and the margins of victory are minimal in most cases. Back when the 805 came out, AMD chips were priced much higher, and it was not a bad buy, although, @ 4ghz the chip would end up costing you more in power consumption.

The K8 chips can break 3ghz, and some will hit around 3.1-3.2(I had a 165 that did 3.1) on air cooling(albeit after market air cooling). So, anyone today should NOT buy a D unless you want Conroe. The X2 3600 would beat it across the board if they were both OCed to max potential. In which case the 805 would cost you more per month to run, and you would also require a more expensive cooling solution. Even back then, if you OC'ed both CPU's to max, the X2's would still bet it. It requires a 1.2-1.4ghz clock advantage in order to be an equal, and your chances of breaking 4.1ghz are slim to none, whereas most K8 chips now, will break 3ghz. If you would like, I can still do some benchmarks on an X2 3800 when I get the chance, but, these links I posted should show you what the outcome would be.

I don't doubt that the setups you have did yield faster performance in a couple of benchmarks, but, the vast majority of all benchmarks run will show the K8 to be a better performer.

wes
 
Kind of what I expected.

I was well aware of TG's benchmarks as that article is one of the things that inspired me to get a few 805Ds and test them ourselves. TG's benchmarks show the overclocked 805D running right with, and beyond in some cases, the FX-57 at stock speeds. In any case it's not a comparison to an overclocked 3800 X2 so I don't see the point.

The other link overclocks the 805D less (3.9GHz) and even states he can't get it to boot at 4.0GHz. His temps at 3.9GHz are in line with mine at 4.0GHz.

He then goes on to show the massive dollar savings of the 3800 X2 when run under full load for 8 hours a day for a year as opposed to the 805D. ($22.56 per year or $1.88 per month) But then who runs a computer under full load for 8 hours per day anyway. So as I said, the power consumption thing is a marketing myth which isn't noticeable on an electric bill.

So you have no explanation on why Window XP Pro with SP2 takes about 3 mins longer to load on the same components with the 3800 X2 at 3.15GHz on water cooling than the 805D does at 4.0GHz on air, or you don't consider that relevant. You totally ignore the memory controller factor as well.

And for the last time, the results of the DC test don't match my own results on 5 different 805Ds over about 18 months, whether it be synthetic benchmarks or real time usage.

Bottom line is that the C2D is a better bargain than either one right now, if your motherboard supports it. 🙂
 
Your memory argument. I know Intel needs the memory bandwidth with the Netburst lines of cpu's in order to keep the pipelines full. AMD as we all know needs low latency memory. The reason that the AMD chips don't show much of a boost from just increasing the memory bandwidth, is because the way the architecture is designed. AMD chips need low latency and higher clocks to show increased performance. They have not been saturating the bandwidth. The Netburst Arch. needed a ton of info to come down to cpu to keep the long pipelines full, therefore it shows an improvement with memory bandwidth increases, whereas, AMD K8 Uarch has not been saturating even the DDR400 speed memory, so, increasing the memory bus speed doesn't show improvements. When they increase the core count to 4, they will probably need the DDR2800, but, they don't need it now. Also, they might need it when you get the frequency up to 3ghz, but I am not certain of that.

As far as the windows install test, that is involved with the entire system, much less with the cpu. The slow down on one system to another could be motherboard, memory, hard drive, sure and CPU. So, unless I were to compare it on different motherboards, harddrives, with different memory, while using the same cpu, then I would not be able to say it's the cpu. It is cool that windows loads faster on one than the other though, but it's not a very valuable test if the slow window loader is faster than the other the majority of the time.

Well, I am pretty sure you are about the only one on the Internet that thinks a Pentium D @ 4ghz is faster than a K8 X2 @ 3ghz, and, I am done trying to convince you otherwise. I know what I have read, and I know what i have personally seen. I don't care to waste my time doing benchmarks, because I know you will pull something else out, or just flat out disagree. It's fine though, it has been interesting talking about the past. Back then the only thing that made that CPU a good choice was the price.... nothing more.

wes

Edit: and I run my PC 24/7 at full load(folding@home for hardOCP), which would cost me about $30 per month with an 805 @ 4ghz, or around half that with a K8 X2 @ 3ghz..... so yeah, $183 more than the K8 in a years time makes a big difference in the actual cost of the CPU's. Actually, even back then, in 1 years time, the 805 would cost more with power costs @ 4ghz than the X2 3800 @ 3ghz.
 
If I were to oc a 805 D today, what is the best board to use. I can't find any of the P5WD2's other than on ebay or at more than double the price of the latest P5W DH. The DH says it doesn't support the 533 FSB, so I just want to make sure it will if that is the way I want to go. Any help is appreciated!

Thank You,
EC
 
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