I am moving off my Pentium 4 3.0ghz to something more powerful. I do want to mention, that stuff I do is processor intensive. Doom3, Quake4, Video & Audio editing/production, Photoshop CS2, DVD ripping etc..

I am thinking either a Pentium D 950 dual core 3.4, or a Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86, which are both +- $230, which is my price range.

Which one will be the most powerful one for a professional/game workstation? Board is a Intel 915g LGA 775. Does this go back to Apples philosophy of clock doesn't matter? Or does the PD 950 3.4 really have that much more kick?

How well does the E6300 do in xbench?

Given that you're on i915 you cant use the Dual core cpus ( you can except you will only see one core if your MB recognizes it). The Core 2 Duos will work on some i945, but mostly on i965 or i975x chipset. The Pentium D's only work on i945, i955x, i975x.

If you dont want to upgrade your mobo - then consider a Single Core Pentium 4 with HT at the fastest Clock cycle you can lay your hands on.

I have a D945Gcz laying around that I can't sell. Would the Pentium D make a performance difference over what I got? Worth the cost?

The Dual Core should help, specially the D9XX series as they have 2 MB Cache / Core. If this is the D945GCZ that supports the Core 2 Duos, then I would go with the Core 2 Duos as they apparently have huge performance improvements over the Netburst architecture.




Just checked, the D94GCZ does not support the Core 2 Duos. So your best bet would be the Pentium D 950 or something along those lines.

Would also take advantage of the 667 MHz DDR2 memory, as it helps. I gather you use some other video other than the onboard Intel GMA 950, but the Memory at 667 helps the graphics. I was on the GMA 950 until I got the X1600xt.

Also SATA 3.0 GB wit NCQ makes a huge difference on your Xbench.