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A 4.1 GHz Dual Core at $130?
joshmo97 writes "Tom's Hardware has found that the Pentium D 805 runs stable at 4.1 GHz and outperforms Intel and AMD's flagship offerings in many benchmarks. From the article: 'The Pentium D 805 is a budget CPU, but it puts lots of processors from AMD and Intel to shame. Although it is not based on the latest 65 nm core, this CPU remains stable even when operating at amazing 4.1 GHz. The Pentium D 805 ascends to the throne as the new King of overclocking, knocking out the AMD Opteron 144.'"
Ok, so you can overclock it to 4.1Ghz.. but how many weeks will it last before it burns out and you need to buy a new one?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
With minimal alterations, you can also perform mad overclocks on your articles!
They watercooled this 10 page story up to an incredible FORTY FIVE pages, using only duct tape, a small iceberg and tons of adverts. Wow!
SET YOUR CLICKING FINGERS TO STUN, LADIES!
Instead of Athlon64+ 3200 and X2 3800s, we built a few machines at the office with P-D 805s. Every user has complained about how hot it gets under their desk with the machines. You reach down and put your arm under the desk, and it's like a sauna. We haven't had any complaints with the AMDs.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Finally, now I have a chip that will make Oblivion run smoothly! Hmm...maybe it's time to dust of ol' Doom III...
This processor, when overclocked to 4.1 Ghz, draws 260 Watts.
That will run up the electric bill just a little.
Too bad that "free" 1.5GHz comes with a 216W increase in power consumption, totalling nearly 500W for the system.
Most chips operate well within their tolerances, anyway, so overclocking them isn't always that big a deal. The thing is, would you really want to trust this day in day out for critical and CPU intensive apps, say Video Editing, etc it its over clocked state?
I'm not really ready to upgrade my entire rig at the moment but I'm almost tempted to buy a Pentium D 805 now before they're
A) Out of stock everywhere
B) Intel releases Revision B that makes overclocking this particular CPU impossible.
Buy em while they're hot folks...(no pun intended, or was there?)
The best thing about the 805 is that the motherboards are so cheap as well! There are definitely bigger and better CPU to lust after, even in terms of price/performance. But then, picking a decent motherboard for say a Dothan or Core Duo that is stable usually takes you to the enthusiast territory and the total system ends up costing much more than you intended. Athlon is an exception, of course. However, overclocking a 805 is like buying a dirt cheap supercompact or hatch, modding the engine, and getting a kick out of everytime your 10k car stays neck to neck with 50k sporty cars :-D
Sorry for adding to the cesspool of odious car similies!
[Note: this is the first 10 pages of the article, with images removed. The charts are given as tab-delimted text.]
There are still some situations in life that are guaranteed to put a grin on anyone's face, even hard-boiled technical skeptics like us. This particular story borders on being a sensation unmatched in our last eight years of hardware reviews. The news, for those who just can't stand the wait any more, is this: Intel has offered a budget Pentium as part of its processor line-up for a little while now. With a simple modification, however, this CPU can outperform every top-of-the-line processor around.
The bottom line is that the Athlon FX-60 and the Pentium Extreme Edition 965 have both met their match - there's simply no escaping this conclusion! This is bound to cause lamentation among the elite circle of users who've invested big bucks in their high-end systems, if not outright wailing and rending of garments. The basic stats for this insignificant-seeming budget processor read as follows: Pentium D 805 clocked at 2.66 GHz, equipped with two processor cores both with 64 bit support. At your friendly neighborhood retailer you can pick up this secret weapon for pocket change - right now, for example, it's available at newegg.com for just under $130. We were quite amazed as the first performance figures emerged from our test labs: stable operation was possible at 4.1 GHz, and without even the need for substantial boosts to cooling!
As one of our more enthusiastic readers wrote to us a few years ago, when we were chasing new overclocking records on what seemed like a daily basis: "I'll knock your numbers down to the ground." In this case, he was referring to the video encoding performance numbers that a heavily overclocked system could post when compared to a stock PC. We've also seen another similar phenomena in days of yore, which ambitious (but older) users probably remember. For example, the Intel Celeron 300A, for which a 300 MHz clock rate was specified, worked flawlessly at 450 MHz. Foreshadowing our current champ, this low-cost offering also knocked a much more expensive Pentium II 400 into the back seat.
The Pentium D 805 gives Intel an unassuming budget CPU for its processor portfolio, but simply overclocking the device to 4.1 GHz puts it ahead of top-of-the-line high-dollar processors. For overclocking aficionados this means one thing: the AMD Opteron 144, which led the overclocking pack until just recently, has been dethroned by the Pentium D 805. This latter processor is not only easier on the pocketbook, it's also a noticeably better performer, thanks to its dual core architecture - the Opteron offers only a single core.
The Pentium D 805 is based on the first Intel dual core processor, the Pentium D with the Smithfield core. Its predecessors in this family were rated at clock speeds of 2.8 GHz (D 820) to 3.2 GHz (D 840). Both cores in this CPU family come equipped with a 1 MB L2 cache, whereas the most current dual core processors in the 900 series make 2 MB available to each core. For the last year, Intel has brought no new models in the 800 series to market, because the company has switched its fabrication from a 90 nm process to a 65 nm one in the meantime, and has used this smaller building block size only for processors in the 900 series. But then out of nowhere, the old Smithfield core put in another appearance in the form of the Pentium D 805.
By comparison with all the other processors in this series, the D 805's relatively low clock speed of 2.66 GHz doesn't make much of an impression on store shelves. At 133 MHz (533 QDR), its front side bus clock rate is laughable when compared to state-of-the-art CPUs with 200 and 266 MHz speeds.
The Secret Of The Multiplier
The multiplier expresses the ratio between the processor clock speed and the FSB clock. For the Pentium D 805, the combination of FSB and processor clocks results in a multiplier value of 20x. By comparison with other CPUs with 200 MHz or 266 MHz FSB, this is a very high valu
If you posted under AC to avoid potental negative modding that is a true shame... what you say is very true and competition is ultimatly what drives inovation.
I would rather see somone say "AMD will prove them wrong" than "that can't be true AMD is better".
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
Let me guess, a hand picked review sample? the best of the best sample chip?
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Honestly I've been there and done that, I think I still have my Celeron 300mhz running at 450mhz somewhere around here. But these days, all I really want in a computer is something that has decent performance and doesn't sound like a vacuum cleaner. I'd much prefer to know which CPU's I can undervolt/underclock, and reduce the DB to a minimum.
The article seems to claim that one chip could be overclocked to 4.1GHz. That's a far cry from saying that all such chips will work at that clock speed. A sample size of one isn't very informative about a population.
And how much would one need to spend on the cooling system for this baby ?
I thought you were kidding about the 45 pages til lI checked the article. I am not going to sift through all that, I'll wait for Anandtech to cover it.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Get an 3800+ it's DC and can clock down to 1Ghz when idle [at 1.1v].
They take very little power [make little noise]. With proper ventilation through the case you can have a quite box which can kick some power from time to time.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The article says:
most buyers can return a CPU purchase within some days for a full refund without having to provide a reason. Here's an overview of all Pentium processors for Socket 775, with their code names and version numbers.
I'm sure newegg will be thrilled that everyone whose 2.66 GHz CPU wouldn't overclock to 4.1 GHz will be returning them.
Multipage reviews are becoming increasingly common. While 5 pages is two much, this review has a whopping 45 pages.
...
THAT IS WAY TOO MUCH
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
I have my IBM PC XT overclocked to 5 GHz, unfortunately it costs 50 KiloWatts to run, but on the plus side I can use it in my kiln to cure pottery.
stuff |
You should look at the MCW series next year. They'll give AMD a good run I think [*]. The basics of core from the public slides I've seen is that the new cores for Intel will be wider than deep and get good MIPS/watt.
[*] I'm saying that as Tom and not "Tom the employee". I'm basing my opinions on publicly avaiable documentation only. (e.g. Rev E6 Opterons vs. speculative Intel cores).
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Nobody said you need to run it that high. You can run that CPU with slightly higher FSB with a slitghly better cooler and get it at 3.6 GHz which is damn close to one of the $1,000 EE chips. I'm off to buy a combo at Fry's for $150 ... can't beat that
Fourty-two!
It's not a problem to run a processor, memory, or whatever at less than the rated max, it's just more that can be a problem. Just take any CPU and reduce the bus speed, it'll work. The only trick is to do it to an incriment that the board can evenly divide to get a correct PCI bus speed. So for example declock an 800mhz bus P4 to 533mhz, since 533mhz is a legit bus speed for P4 busses.
However, realisticly, you are better just getting a more efficient processor. Get yourself a Core Duo processor. They are currently the best performance/watt you can get your hands on in x86 land, hence Apple's using of them. You can get them independant of laptops and use them in desktops. A T2300 should dissipate less than 30 watts or so (I don't have the precise spec, but the thermal spec only calls for like 30 watts disspaption for the whole Core Duo line).
The point of the article is that it's possible to get good value for your money now. I've run dual core for 3 months at home and dual proc for 3 years at work. I own a small computer computer business. I have hard time telling anyone to buy a single core if any dual core is available for under $150. The second core just makes such a big difference for regular usage for OS level tasks.
Would I prefer AMD to have an offering in that price range? Sure, but they don't, and at the moment, it's easy to see where your money is best spent right now. The fact the D805 overclocks insanely for some chips isn't even relevant for most home users, and all business users- because they won't be overclocking.
Is Intel going to regret selling these for under $150? Probably, but if you can't beat them on performance (ignoring the occasional superchip), you sell in volume with good values. That's how AMD survived during the K5 and K6 years.
Waiting for the next best thing is kinda silly in the computer world. Well, waiting more than a week, anyways. :)
The Internet has no garbage collection
I'm not disagreeing for right now. I was responding to your comment about leaving AMDland.
While I think AMD still has the winner [specially when you go 2P or higher with the HT links] Intel is improving their cores in the Memrom/Conroe/Woodcrest parts for next year.
Now if Intel got off their collective arses and got something like HT in their processors next year it would be more neck and neck.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
US military to Intel "your latest shipment of Mil-Spec CPU's are not up to standard"
Intel to US military "That's strange, we sent you our very best core's"
Somewhere at Intel after reading Slashdot " $@&#$%&!!!, is that where they went"
Things are coming around again for the overclockers--just like the Celeron 266Mhz, overclocking to like 400 Mhz, now we are overclocking the 2.66 Ghz to 4.1 GHz... great! actually I see this more as intel doing some padding because they are worried they won't be able to get to these high clock speeds easily anymore... so they release something that is underclocked basically, and in future versions they just clock it up a bit and sell it as a new chip for 3 times the price..
Consider 'electromigration' (where electrons moving thru fine wires cause the atoms in the wires to move and eventually breaks to occur in metal layers) can take years and depend on the number of electrons and how much energy they carry - bump the voltage/current and you have more electrons carrying more energy - chips designers these days run simulations to make sure that electromigration will cause no problems over the life of the chip .... but they make assumptions about how the chip will be used and spec the chip based on those assumptions.
Often stuff like this is statistical - you may well have a cpu that's running perfectly, your neighbor may suffer an early failure
Finding one out a million doesn't make the sort of sweeping generalization true.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
It's been known for a while that AMD's Opteron 165's ($330) will o/c to at or above the performance of an FX-60 ($1000).
All this article really says is that the ultra-high-end isn't worth it.
I'd like to see a comparison between this thing and the Opty-165 o/c. The Pentium may be a bit cheaper, but factor in the power and cooling bill and (I expect) the higher performance of the Opteron, and it's probably about even.
I notice that while the clock rates climb quickly, the performance levels on most real world benchmarks level out pretty quickly. So why bother waste all the time and electricity?
Although I share your contempt for the chip manufacturers, I really don't think that's the way things work. Why sell something advanced that's been underclocked when you can also sell something cheaper? Also, why sell something that's in the same league as the competition's product, when you have something far better in stock that outperforms it by leaps and bounds?
It will happen.
Personally, I'd rather wait for decent reasonably-priced Conroe motherboards. But this Asus motherboard does give me a reasonably-priced, cool, and quiet Core Duo (Merom-compatible) option.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
Old school. Well played.
Think about what the whole point of dual core was.
Chip heat output increases exponentially with clock speed. Heat output means power consumption and loud fans and... well, heat.
Everybody was bitching about heat output of chips (OMG Pentium 4 is teh sux0r is sooo h0t)
Take two cores. Essentially underclock them. Now each runs at less than half the heat output (remember that exponential heat curve.... ) and you have two of them so you have more total computing power in a SMP configuration.
Now somebody overclock it and they get really awesome performance... of course, because the cores were essentially underclocked in the first place. But now their heat output is terrible because they abandoned the basic advantage of dual-core: the performance per watt ratio.
I keep wondering if there aren't clocking sweet spots where the chip runs cooler than at both lower and higher frequencies, and if you've found it at one frequency and then double it, there's a sweet spot at the doubled frequency but spread over a smaller range of frequencies, then doubled again at an even smaller range...keep doing it again and again up to a point, constantly tuning for the center of the sweet spot at each doubling.
A Vista-capable processor for $130? Wow!
is it just me or does the toms hardware site look like one giant advertisement with occasional information thrown in ?
And a hefty power bill to go along with it.
I picked up a 805 myself and just like Tom's I could do 3.33 with stock vcore. Read any other ocing articles on the 805 and 4ghz can only be achieved with water cooling. Even if you shoot for 3.8 you are going to need a $60 heatsink and pray it gets the job done.
He also says: "It's noteworthy that the core voltage levels of 2.7 volts didn't read out correctly here."
This isn't true according to my testing. CPUZ shows the correct voltage, well close to it anyways. For some reason currently shipping intel motherboards and nf4 intel motherboards have a hard time supplying the correct voltage when oced and under load. The voltage always drops by a substantial amount, for example at 3.33 it drops from 1.337 to 1.25 while under load. I broke out my multimeter to make sure since I was contemplating upping the voltage in the bios to compensate.
At any rate I would say ocing it to 3.33 is good enough considering the price.
Oh and why fsck did this article need 45 pages?
I remember overclocking my AMD Thunderbird with a mechanical pencil.
The original clockspeed was 2.66GHz. Just thought I'd highlight that fact since it was nonsensically omitted from the summary and I haven't seen anyone else mentioning it.
I mean, c'mon, how many people know what the original speed of the conveniently named Pentium D 805 is off the top of their heads anyway?
Well, considering that you do have to overclock it to get the 4.1 GHz it announces, I would say that is not very reliable. As far as the 2.6 GHz from the get go, it seems to be a pretty good deal. Even if you don't have to properly cool it down to overclock it as it said, I still would not recommend this processor to just anyone wanting a computer. But $150 for a 2 GHz+ processor is a good deal nonetheless.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
1) Using the Standard Intel CPU cooler the processor wasn't even stable at 3.3Ghz, so they put on a zalman cooler.
2) The zalman cooler wasn't good enough and would throttle after 3.8Ghz
3) The 4.1Ghz was achieved using water cooling. The CPU is rated at 1.4v max and they had to run it at 1.56v to make this work.
The headline says "A 4.1 GHz Dual Core at $130?" - but you'll need water cooling to make it to 4.1 ghz and that will at least double the price. Not to mention you'de probably need a new power supply.
Remember the Turbo button? Wow, that takes me back...
Don't. Intel will be releasing a 915 processor soon which should run much cooler and clock higher than the 805. It's based on Presler which is far superior to the Smithfield core used in the 805.
Furthermore, 4.1 ghz is VERY rare for the 805. I know many people who have tried OCing these chips and can't really beat 3.5-3.7 ghz. The heat output is terrible.
Is a junk site. Stay away if you value you er, values. YES! another pen is contest!
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
Don't bother; if you overclock it like mad, you run into all sorts of problems, and if you don't, you run into the fact that, at stock clocks, it rather sucks. Save yourself the trouble and get an Opteron, if you insist on overclocking, or if you don't, an Athlon 64 X2.
"Excuse me, did you say 'Trekker'? The word is 'Trekkie.' I should know; I created them." -- Gene Roddenberry
He meant:
This hack may be ok for my workstation, but I wouldn't do it to my gaming rig.
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Its kinda a shame. The article is interesting, but I find it hard to read when it is so broken up by pointless images and goofy ads. Whatever happened to the good ole printer-friendly articles?
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Dont' forget you need a pretty good set of RAM to do this. RAM that will most likely cost you over double what the processor is worth. A motheboard that can handle those speeds isn't cheap either. Plus, you need a power supply that is reliant and can deliver a steady stream of power. Cooling is another must for this. Expect to pay at least $60 for a cooling unit if not more and go with watercooling. You will end up looking at around $500 just for the few main components. For the enthusiast, thats great; for everyone else, its not worth it.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Funny farming, sure. That's fun to say!
Man, you really need that seminar!