I've gone from s478 3.0ghz to the 805, theres a couple of reasons behind it, and they seem to have been ignored.
1 - Costs.
Exactly how much is a semi decent Conroe/AM2 chip going to cost? $400 did you say? I think i'll pass thanks.
2 - Multi-tasking.
Maybe its a 0.4ghz step back at standard speeds, but even with stock cooling and running a single application, im going to expecting 3.4-3.8ghz if i want to let the juices flow.
3 - The future.
At the moment, 95% of people with a s478 chip in there machine are like myself, currently stuck with AGP graphics, DDR memory, and the fantastic s478 cpu range to chose from. Taking this supposedly expensive and pointless upgrade means i dont waste £300 on a CPU which right now is teetering on the edge of the next phase of CPUs, instead it means maybe i waste £80 on a cr*p CPU, £150 on a short-lived Mobo (is the Asus P5WD2's future compatable? not arsed really, wanted an AMD tbh!) but the PCI-E card will be fine, the 2gb DDR2-800 will be fine.
4 - Worth in 6 months.
In 6 months time, if i decide to upgrade, say i throw that D805 straight in the bin, thats £80 binned. You wouldnt lose that little selling a decent chip 2nd hand if it was only 1 month old!
Lets be honest, it might be a budget chip, and it might not be the fastest thing the worlds seen and we may well be on the edge of CPU greatness of which the world has never seen before.... but i cant afford to pay for all that, a decent mobo to justify the CPU, decent memory to partner it, and a decent GFX card to go kick some ass while gaming.
For me, this little overclocking secret came at a perfect time (to the day by chance), any upgrade was going to be expensive, just going with a new GFX card meant buying a new Mobo, and who'd spend £300/$500 on decent card while chugging along with a s478 as the workhorse!
If i was on an PCI-E board already, then maybe i'd have reconsidered things, but throwing £50/$80 on a bargin basement s478 mobo just to upgrade GFX, and then getting another Mobo when i get a new CPU months later.... its equally wasteful.
For myself, im running dual screen, and before that i had the taskbar doubled up and filled with apps all running away, now with the temptation of 2 screens to fill, i'll have Photoshop running on one side, DW on the other, Outlook brought up every few minutes answering emails, and browser windows popping up to check coding progress. So DC has been needed for a while, and the fact that TH posted this peice has meant that i've been able to purchase ALL the items i wanted without having to budget for things, good quality memory, x1900XTX, TTask Armor case, new HDs to switch to Raid5, and a capable CPU in the middle running its little socks off. Maybe it doesnt have a long lifespan, but then what does in the computing world these days??