Intel Pentium 4

Everyone said it was dead, but the Pentium 4 580 (4.0GHz Prescott, BX80547PG4000E) seems to be rearing its ugly head in Europe. A bit of creative Googling should yield some German merchants with the processor in question. We have the chip on our radar in RTPE, but we don't anticipate or recommend that anyone get too excited over this monstrosity. Sometimes, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

In other news, the Pentium 4 lineup is finally getting 64-bit support. Considering the sad state of 64-bit drivers and Windows x64, jumping onto the 64-bit wagon with the already poor Prescott architecture might not be such a good deal. If you're interested in an operating system with real 64-bit support, then maybe the new Prescotts are worth it. On the other hand, you're probably better spending your money on Athlon 64s instead.

The Prescott-2M chips moved ever slightly this week, although hardly enough over the last few months to warrant a purchase. We are still unconvinced of the Prescott's performance when compared to Athlon 64, so don't expect to see us recommending any of these processors in the near future (unless the price begins to drop dramatically). Surprisingly, even though Intel added another chip to the Prescott 2M lineup, other Prescott-2M chips did not move in price because the Prescott 670 [RTPE: BX80547PG3800F] debuted well above the MSRP of any of the other Prescott chips.

Sempron & Turion Celeron & Pentium M
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  • Chef Brian - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    The review was a little down on the P-M. The reviews I've seen show that a 2ghz dothan is about the equivalent of an athlon 3700+ -, so yes the price-performance isnt much better than an Athlon. I will seriously consider a Yonah when they're released...

    Pentium M's rule. Best CPU architecture ever!
  • Zebo - Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - link

    quote:

    Hopefully the embargoed X2 will alleviate some of AMD's criticism for not providing a low cost dual core processor.


    Even at the so-called high price thier charging the forum is full of them.. at least 40. Same at xtreme. same at techreport. Guess how many Pentium dually I've seen at anandtech? Zero. I wonder why? Could it be the cheapest 4200 out performs the $1100 840EE?


    quote:

    No one would argue that AMD has the weaker dual core chip.


    WTF?

  • Furen - Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - link

    I think they meant that no one would use the argument "AMD has the weaker dual core".
  • Furen - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    #22 I dont think anyone said anything negative about the pentium M but since I'm just skimming through the post so I might have missed it.

    They are the best gaming cpus clock-for-clock, but perform slower at pretty much everything else. Also, a 2GHz dothan costs about the same as a 2.4Ghz San Diego, which it will, most certainly, not outperform at ANYTHING.

    Yonah sounds great, though.
  • Chef Brian - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    Pentium M weak my ass...clock for clock it's the fastest gaming processor, period.
  • KristopherKubicki - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    KeithDust2000: I agree with Furen. We don't know when the 3800+ will show up and what the actual price might be. If it shows up in the channel in September, the D820 might be $50 cheaper (as will 945P boards no doubt). It's not really worth speculating about until the chips hit the channel in my opinion.

    Kristopher
  • Furen - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    "So compare $605 for AMD versus $375 for Intel; it comes to about 1.6. I would still think the D820 has the advantage although I would be very interested in seeing the new AMD chip in a couple weeks."

    He's comparing the currently available X2 chips to the currently available PDs ($515 for an X2 4200 and 90 bucks for an NForce4 mobo). The X2 3800 is not available right now and who knows what the price and availability will be at launch...
  • KeithDust2000 - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    @ Kristopher:

    P-D 820 + board= 241+130=371
    A64 X2 3800+ = 345+90=435

    I´d say that´s pretty close, and if you already have
    S939... Anyway, you also get a much better product. That´s 2x3200+ instead of 2x2.8Ghz, und the additional power savings, the architectural benefits...

    Your $605 number makes no sense, or what am I missing?

  • KeithDust2000 - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    @ Jarred Walton:

    From another thread, but what exactly makes you think that Conroe and Merom will hold the performance lead in their respective segments for "quite a while"?

    @ Kristofer:

    The Athlon 64 X2 3800+ @ $345 (street prices tend to be lower than list) may not be the cheapest chip on the block, but it should imho be the best
    price/performance chip on the market.

    With it, AMD has basically the Pentium D 830, 840
    and EE covered (in terms of price) - and that despite Anand´s earlier
    insistence that X2 would may not be available at all this year, or very late this year, at retail. It should also have the Pentium
    D 820 covered for those that already own a S939 board. Not bad at all for the little manufacturer.

    BTW, die size of the part amounts to 147mm^2, which is the same size as Newcastle. AMD should be able to make quite a few of those should the need arise.
  • KeithDust2000 - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    Hi!

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