Pentium D 3.0 vs. Athlon 64x2 3800+ vs. Core 2 Duo 1.86Ghz

[releasedtruth]

Alright, the point may be moot, but it's still fun to debate. I'm looking to build a ~300 dollar replacement for my P4 2.2Ghz, Radeon 9600 Pro MAME pc. I'll be replacing the following items:

Unknowns
Mboard
CPU

Knowns
RAM - 512MB DDR2 533
Case/PS - Aspire X-gear

I've looked at the benchmarks on Toms Hardware (closest to the Duo is a 2.1) and all things being equal the   Duo > Athlon > Pentium D   for most things. The price out the door is 355, 300, 295 respectively. Just as a matter of heresay and conjecture, which would be preferable keeping in mind the divergent prices (Duo being 17% more, etc) End goal is to never update again (maybe more ram) and to jam some 3d games Zinc doesn't support (boost the ones it does).

[Kaytrim]

The Intel Duo is the second generation of the dual core processor these two cores are matched by Intel.  The Pentium D is the first generation dual core and the two cores are not as well matched.  I don't know much about the AMD processor though.  Here is a link to an ExtremeTech comparesion of these processors.  Also keep in mind that the Quad cores are due out soon.  ExtremeTech has a review of Intel's quad core processor as well as AMD's quad core.

As far as MAME is concerned you shouldn't get much of a performance boost from dual core or quad core tech as MAME is single threaded for the most part.  The better performance boost would be a nice paired set of ram sticks for a total of 1-2 mb of memory.

[releasedtruth]

Hmm, that's a good point to be sure. I'll also use this machine to crunch numbers in matlab when I'm not playing games so I figured if I went Core 2 I would just run it in the 2.2Ghz range and get some serious floating point quickness. Price is a little higher, but seems to make more sense. The quad cores will be insane.

GT

[Thenasty]

The better performance boost would be a nice paired set of ram sticks for a total of 1-2 mb of memory.

We know what ya mean here    (gb)

[clanggedin]

I picked up a Core 2 Duo a few weeks ago and it has sped up my processing power by leaps and bounds when it comes to rendering large images in Photoshop. I had a 2.4ghz P4 with 1.5GB RAM and it would literally take 10 minutes to render a 3' x 5' banner. Now it only takes a few seconds with my core 2 and only 1 GB of RAM.

If you are going to crunch numbers then get a 2 Duo.

[USSEnterprise]

Is the pentium D an 8xx or a 9xx?

[releasedtruth]

Pentium D 925. I really want the Core 2, but it feels like a waste on a machine that's only in the arcade considering my laptop is a P4 3.2HT and my other desktop is only an Athlon 2100+ so the mame machine would be the fastest by far. I think I have a sickness. I'm a graphic artist myself so a faster desktop/laptop would make more 'logical' sense, but tell that to my Die Hard Arcade needs....

GT

[clanggedin]

Buy the new motherboard and processor for your other PC and use the 2100+ for your arcade.

[Tiger-Heli]

This pretty strongly favors the C2D: http://mame32qa.classicgaming.gamespy.com/Bench.htm

[USSEnterprise]

Buy the new motherboard and processor for your other PC and use the 2100+ for your arcade.

agreed