Is it worth buying Intel Pentium D805? Analysis of Consumer Electronics World

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Is it worth buying Intel Pentium D805? Analysis of Consumer Electronics World [Copy link]

　　Since the boxed Pentium D 805 price fell below 1,000 yuan in early April this year, the market's attention to this processor has continued to rise. However, recently, some hardware players have questioned the cost-effectiveness of PD805, and some media have called PD805 a "defective product", "castrated product", and "completely not worth buying". These questioning voices have confused many consumers who were originally interested in PD805. In order to solve the doubts of consumers, let's make a comprehensive analysis below.
Is Intel's "Pentium D 805" a defective product?
　　The "shrinkage" of specifications has attracted doubts. The
specifications of the Pentium D series processors are compared
　　. The specifications of PD805 are the main reason for some hardware players and media to question. From the specification table, we can easily see that it is the only product in the current Pentium D series processors that uses a 533MHz front-end bus, and its 2.66GHz main frequency is also the lowest among Pentium D processors. Due to the significant reduction in the front-end bus and main frequency, the performance of PD805 will inevitably be greatly affected.
　　In the test, the gaming performance and computing power of PD805 are inferior to the E6 Athlon 64 3000+ processor of the same price. It is also inferior to the PD820/920 and Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processors which also adopt dual-core design. For this reason, some hardware players and media believe that PD805 is just a "defective product" with reduced specifications and "castrated product", which is not worth buying even if it is cheap.
　　In addition, although PD805 has good overclocking ability, its high power consumption and high heat generation characteristics have also become the focus of criticism. Some media even claim that a power supply of at least 550W is required to ensure stable operation under overclocking. Although the author agrees with the test results and the low specifications of PD805, he has a different view on the conclusion.
Market positioning determines product specifications
　　Before analyzing the specifications of PD805, let's take a look at the prices of several mainstream dual-core processors. The common dual-core processors on the market are Intel's PD805/820/920 and AMD's Athlon 64 X2 3800+/4000+. The market price of the boxed PD805 is about 980 yuan, while the market prices of PD820/920 and Athlon 64 X2 3800+/4000+ are as high as 1800 yuan/1980 yuan/2250 yuan/3000 yuan, which is 2 to 3 times that of PD805. Obviously, the market positioning of PD820/920 and Athlon 64 X2 3800+/4000+ is much higher than that of PD805.
　　In order to maintain a reasonable performance difference between PD processors of different grades, it is reasonable for Intel to reduce the specifications of PD805. Aren't the mainstream Celeron D and Sempron 64 on the market "castrated" from Pentium 4 and Athlon 64? Facts have proved that as long as the product is reasonably priced, processors with simplified specifications can also be recognized. In fact, the Pentium 4 506 processor with a 533MHz front-end bus was ridiculed as a "castrated" product when it was first launched, but later it became one of the best-selling Pentium 4 processors with its low price and good overclocking ability.
　　Of course, we should also see that Intel has some problems in product line formulation. For example, the specifications of the PD805 and Pentium 4 506 processors are very different from those of the PD820 and Pentium 4 531 in the same series, but these processors are very similar in product names. If consumers do not have certain hardware knowledge, it is easy to equate PD805 with the high-end PD8*0 series products. Especially now that the dual-core concept is very popular, users will inevitably have too high expectations for the performance of PD805.
Multi-tasking performance that cannot be ignored
　　: Since the AMD K8 architecture has certain advantages in gaming performance and computing power, if we simply compare these two points, even the Pentium 4 630 processor may not be a match for the Athlon 64 3000+. The dual-core processors of AMD and Intel emphasize multi-tasking performance rather than gaming performance. Therefore, the author believes that some media's comparison test between PD805 and Athlon 64 3000+ only in a single-task environment is one-sided.
　　From the existing test results, the performance of PD805 in single-threaded applications such as 3D games and office software is basically the same as that of Pentium 4 506, but its performance in a multi-tasking environment is significantly better than that of mid-to-high-end single-core processors such as Pentium 4 630 and Athlon 64 3000+. That is to say, the mainstream configuration of PD805 can maintain a relatively smooth operation effect in a typical multi-tasking environment where Photoshop CS2, Office 2003 Word, Thunder download and multiple IE windows are opened at the same time, and the execution efficiency of each program will not be greatly affected; while the Pentium 4 506 and Athlon 64 3000+ with single-core design will be relatively struggling in similar environments.
"550W" is really taken out of context
　　. Good overclocking ability has always been one of the main selling points of the PD805 processor. Not long ago, a netizen overclocked PD805 to 4GHz. According to the CPU full-load current tested by the netizen at that time, it is estimated that a 550W power supply is needed to meet the power demand after overclocking. Subsequently, the media reprinted this news and believed that this was because the PD805 had a design defect, so the power consumption was huge. In fact, these media overlooked an important fact. When the netizen overclocked, he increased the core voltage of PD805 from the default 1.25V to 1.576V. The voltage increase of up to 31.3% was the real reason for the significant increase in power consumption. The statement that "overclocking PD805 requires at least a 550W power supply" is completely out of context.
　　In fact, a mainstream configuration based on the PD805 processor will not consume more than 220W (excluding the display) under full load, and its temperature will remain at around 50℃ at normal room temperature. It's just that as the core voltage of the processor increases, the leakage of transistors increases, and the heat and power consumption of the processor will increase significantly. In other words, for users who do not overclock or do not increase the CPU core voltage excessively when overclocking, a high-quality 350W power supply is enough to meet the power demand of PD805.
Choose products regardless of their use
. 　　After analysis, we should clearly realize that it is too radical to completely deny the cost-effectiveness of PD805 because of its low specifications. In fact, its current price and performance are in line with the positioning of "entry-level dual-core processor", and its cost-effectiveness is worthy of recognition. Of course, we also remind consumers to pay attention to its special specifications and not to confuse it with the PD8*0 series.
　　As consumers, we should face new technologies rationally and not think that dual-core must represent high performance. For office users who often need to open multiple large applications at the same time and mainstream users who want to experience the dual-core platform as soon as possible, PD805 is indeed an ideal choice; but if the main purpose of building a computer is to play games and rarely involves multitasking, then please consider Athlon 64 3000+.
　　According to Intel's latest processor development blueprint, PD805 will be discontinued in the third quarter of this year, and will be replaced by two new entry-level dual-core processors, PD915/925. They are both manufactured using a 65nm process, have an 800MHz front-side bus and 2MB×2 L2 cache, and are clocked at 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz respectively. Their performance will obviously be better than PD805, but since the prices of these two products have not yet been determined and they are still nearly half a year away from being on the market, PD805 is still a good choice in the short term.

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Yes, it is worth considering!