Pentium D 805 Dual Core - What do you think?

lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
edited March 2006 in Hardware
These 805's have been out for a little while now, and I almost did a double take when I saw the sale price on NCIX. $159CDN for a dual core? wow. I know it's a flaming 90nm intel, but this could make a killer folding rig. I'm very tempted to pick one up. Since they are 533MHz bus models, it won't be very taxing on most mainboards to overclock this thing.

My father desperatly needs a PC upgrade, so it may find its way in his office (Running FAH of course ;)). He's using my old dual celeron 366 BP6 rig from back in the day right now, and it is painful to use.

Anyone have any OC friendly mainboard recommendations? Low cost is key :)

This thing may find its way under the vapo for a little bit of a [strike]burn[/strike]freeze in :)

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2006
    I've no experience with the 805s, but quite a bit of experience with the 820s. You should be able to find an 820, socket 775, 800MHz FSB, 2.8GHz/core on eBay for USD 150-175.

    Recommended, stable overclocking boards: Asus P5PL2, Asus P5WD2, MSI 945P Neo-F. I'm sure there are more boards that overclcock the Intel DC chips easily, but my experience is with the boards I've mentioned. Check out Newegg's refurb section. I've had very good experience with their refurbs. The MSI has spotty/poor BIOS overclocking ability, but the software overclocking works well for mid-level overclocking. I'm not sure how far you will get overclocking that CPU, as it's the Smithfield core. Sure, it will probably overclcock quite well IF the case and CPU are well-cooled. There are a lot of guys getting decent overclocks with the stock, OEM heatsink. Beats me how, though. Maybe their nerves are just tougher than mine, watching temperatures climb very high. Be warned, the Smithfield cores put out a LOT of heat under overclocking and load.

    If your dad will be the system owner, I recommend no overclock or just a mild one. For Folding@Home, that CPU looks to be a superb bargain. For that money, there is probably no other CPU that could match it in Folding performance.

    Sorry I couldn't provide more input on motherboard selections. I've no doubt there are other OC friendly and stable boards in the 775 arena, but I don't want to guess.

    With only a 533MHz bus, the performance on that CPU is not going to be spectacular, but the upgrade will be tremendous compared to what your Dad is presently using.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited March 2006
    They have a thread going at the Overclockers.com forums about the 805's, lemonlime. It looks like it's pretty easy to overclock them into the 3.8 range or so on high end air, with the odd one making it higher. They also have someone who has posted in that thread that's put it under a Vapochill Lightspeed and has it clocked over 4.3 GHz. Also in that thread, someone mentioned that the Asus P5P800 SE is dual core capable and it's under $100 US at Newegg, but I don't know what it sells for north of the border.

    It looks to be a relatively cheap way to get a high performance general use or folding rig. The drawbacks are the heat generated and also the psu requirements to feed that fire belching 805 enough juice, especially when overclocking it. Of course for your Dad, I don't imagine you will overclock it too high though for reliability reasons.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2006
    Unless the computer will have multiple drives and/or high end graphics, a quality 430w PSU should be sufficient. The most power PSU I've got with my 820s (all overclocked at least 700MHz) is a 460watt Akasa.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited March 2006
    i was thinking about getting an opty 165 to throw in my dfi mobo and an asrock uli1695 board for my a64 3200+...but i can get a p-d 805, epox 945p, and 2gb g.skill ddr 667 (4.4.4.12) for the same price - $400.

    decisions. decisions.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited March 2006
    Leonardo wrote:
    Unless the computer will have multiple drives and/or high end graphics, a quality 430w PSU should be sufficient. The most power PSU I've got with my 820s (all overclocked at least 700MHz) is a 460watt Akasa.

    I take it that all are single rail psu's you are using, huh Leo? I've heard of problems with highly overclocked Pentium D's and dual rail psu's. They run out of 12v power for the mobo, since both rails are relatively low amp compared to a single rail psu.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2006
    Only System 1 has a Type 2.0 PSU. The rest are single rail. On number 1, the OC limit is not the PSU, it's room temperature and CPU v-droop. 12v voltages on all the D820 systems are excellent.

    Yes, I'm hearing about problems with the dual-12v systems as well. Keep in mind though, my most sophisticated system is relatively simple with a low power video card, two PATA hard drives, and one optical drive. Systems 1, 2, and 3 all together pull about 750 watts or less at full load, overclocked, as measured by my ACP UPS.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2006
    was thinking about getting an opty 165 to throw in my dfi mobo and an asrock uli1695 board for my a64 3200+...but i can get a p-d 805, epox 945p, and 2gb g.skill ddr 667 (4.4.4.12) for the same price - $400.
    Exactly! I will not disparage AMD's advantages with anyone. They make excellent CPUs. But with the market flooded with Intel processors, and with the market tight with AMDs, great values can be found with Intel right now. Between eBay and private deals, I spent a total of $424 on three D820s. I bought all my motherboards as refurbs from Newegg, and Newegg's G.Skill DDR2667 - the same stuff you've got.
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