How does a Pentium D compare with a Core 2 Duo?

Question

Are they an alternative, or has the latter superseded the former?

Thanks

Answer 1

Unlike such processors as the Pentium 4 and Pentium D, Core 2 (Duo or Solo) does not stress designs based on extremely high clock speeds but rather improvements in the processor's usage of both available clock cycles and power. This translates into more efficient decoding stages, execution units, caches, and buses, as well as many other factors. The power consumption of these processors is much lower than the Pentium desktop line of products.

Answer 2

To be technical, the Pentium D dual cores were connected via the northbridge, and as such were limited by the BUS speed in their degree of being parallel. The new Core 2 Duo is linked directly on the chip and so they are MASSIVELY parallel... in other words, where before you might have gotten a 30% performance boost from the second core, now you might get as much as an 80% out of it. That comes from (as has been said) better parallel function which yields more efficiency per clock cycle at lower energy use... all of which contributes to better performance.

Answer 3

Even the slowest Core 2 Duo massively outperforms the fastest Pentium D...
See the link below to compare a number of cpus across an assortment of tasks.

Answer 4

Pentium D's are of course usable, but obsolete in comparison to the newer Core 2 Duos. Better performance, better power management.