Pentium 4 or equiv AMD vs. Pentium D dual core or equiv

[gw]

I'm computer shopping for a PC to use mainly for high-end photo
editing, along with video editing.

One I've been looking at is an HP m7590n, because of its 3.2-GHz
Pentium D 940 CPU, 2GB RAM, 500MB HDD, and the and the easy port
accessibility plus bay for an additional removeable HDD. I know its
video did not rate well for gamers, but I am not a gamer, anyway. The
lack of expandability bothers me a little, but there are always
firewire external drives and it does have the media bay.

My question is, am I going to see a great deal of performance
improvement by going with a dual core processor vs. a fast P4
processor? What about the difference between a Pentium D and a Intel
Core 2 Duo?

I'm trying to get the best bang for the buck, looking at spending no
more than $1100 for the box; I'm likely getting a Sony LCD monitor, so
that'll be separate.

 

[Guest]

The P4 and D basically are built around the same architecture,the D is like
stacking 2 P4 together.Some improvement,but not alot...Both will do the job,
a slave hd would be an improvement,also,even if youre not a "gamer" go by
those standards as if you are,they (gamers) use pcs that demand more,that
hardware is in the same catagory as yours-video/photos...

 

[gw]

Thanks for the reply. Will a PD show much improvement over the P4 when
it comes to doing other stuff while a DVD is burning or while a program
is converting video format? I typically don't buy the latest and
greatest because things are obsolete immediately, but in the case of a
business computer, I do want what's going to crunch the video the most
efficiently as possibly for my budget.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Solo Core won't show much of an improvement over a HT P4. Dual Core will...
and Dual 2 Core (just out this week but not yet in notebooks in department
stores) will show an even bigger improvement. The real benefits of both the
dual and solo core CPUs is in their lower temperatures so overheating (and
therefore slowing down) should not be a factor.

Obviously not so much of a problem in a desktop, but in a notebook, believe
me, my P4 3.6gb HT overheats almost daily causing shutdowns. Oh well, next
year I'll invest in a Dual2 Core notebook to replace this one and keep this
as a spare.

I would probably still prefer a desktop over a notebook for graphic work and
video editing, just because of the flexibility it offers for upgrading bits
as and when finances allow.