Hi guys,

Quick question. Building an Ideq SFF PC and was just wondering what is going to perform better? An Intel Pentium D 925 3.0GHz or Pentium 4 631 3GHz? They are both LGA 775 with 800FSB so either would work in the Ideq. Is the Pentium D 925 much better as it is dual core?

Thanks for your help.

Depends on what you're gonna use the system for. There's little reason not to go with dual-core these days. If the board supports the Core 2 Duo, it would be the better choice. The P4 & P-D run hot & that's not good for a "lunchbox" PC. The C2D runs cooler & outperforms the P4/P-D even though it's runs at a lower clock speed.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2...

Even a low end A64 X2 outperforms the CPUs you mentioned:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2...

What motherboard do you have?

It's the mobo that is in the Ideq 220M - the Biostar P4VBU-S7.

Thing is it only states it can support either:

CPU SUPPORT Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor
Intel® Celeron® D Processor

So not sure if I can use any dual core CPU?

Thanks for your help.

"It's the mobo that is in the Ideq 220M - the Biostar P4VBU-S7"

I did a quick search & found it at the following site for $200.

http://www.pcdirectsource.com/Item....

I sure hope you didn't pay anywhere near that much for it? The specs are nothing special & by the time you buy a CPU, RAM, HDD, optical drive, etc., will you have a fair amount of money tied up in it. The onboard video is basically crap so you won't be doing any gaming with it unless you install an AGP video card...& they've become quite expensive when compared to PCI-e cards.

You're apparently correct about the CPU support...no dual-cores are listed, just P4 & Celeron D.

Here's the Biostar info:

http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en-us...

Oh don't worry about that - I got the Ideq 220M for £60 (about $120) and that is the case, PSU and mobo. Then the P4 3Ghz cost me £40 ($80) and I am using the RAM, DVD-RW and 6800GT from my old PC so I am hoping this will make a nice little machine!

Will stick with the Pentium 4 and see how it is, not building it until Sunday.

Thanks again jam!