Is there any reason, besides cost, to consider a Pentium 4 over a "Conroe"?

Question

I have a friend who's buying a computer and he's keen on getting a Pentium 4 3.6ghz.

He's asked for my advice and I've been doing some reading up and found out that the Conroe (Core 2 Duo) seems to be the latest and best thing out there at the moment. But I'm slightly concerned about the comparatively low clock speeds.

Would, say, a Conroe 6600 (2.4ghz) be hands down a better option than a Pentium 4 3.6ghz? Are there any departments in which the P4 is better, or does the Conroe win right across the board?

Answer 1

Conroe is better, hands down. It's clocked slower than a P4, but it also runs cooler with less power consumption and it's actually 2 cpu's in one chip. It runs more efficiently than a P4, as well. Not to mention, Intel is phasing out the P4, so you'll never really be able to upgrade it down the road.

Trust me clock speeds don't mean anything anymore. AMD processors have always been slower than Intel in clock speeds, but still performed on par, and in most cases, even better than their Intel counterparts.

Answer 2

a conroe/ core 2 duo is actually much better than the p4. i recently ran a trial run at our shop with one of them and was very impressed. after running some visual stress tests and scoring programs like worldbench we found that the core 2 duo is better than almost every chip we had in stock. it could keep pace with an amd fx-60 and was only 10fps lower than an fx-62 in F.E.A.R. alll the way on high. a p4, even the 3.6ghz kind cant even touch that (unless you buy the extreme edition, which is like $1000+)
Hope this helps!

Answer 3

Most likely the Core Duo is better. AMD has named their chips with a number that represents its intel P4 equivelant, like 3600+ is slower than 3.6GHz, but it's just as good as an Intel P4 3.6GHz. Intel might be getting higher "Performance per Megahert" on their core duo, but it would be easier to understand if Intel numbered their chips like AMD did.

Answer 4

i would get the p 4 it has better proformance.The ceron can be OCed[overcloked] more than the p4 the low clock speeds can be changed to a faster speed.OCing will shorten the life of the chip.if you don't have the right cooling it will cause it to fail.Over cloking your cpu can be done if you don't over do it. OC at your own risk. Buy the P4 it is better.