So here I was reading up on this new Dual Core Pentium 4 processor and found myself at a cross roads. By the looks of the Pentium D benchmarks on a few websites, it seems to do a good if not great job on diff software programs that support multi-threading. Now the down side is that a lot of programs don't support multi-threading as of yet so the Pentium D is forced to be benchmarked on the same level as single core processorswhich it still doesn't do a bad job at keeping up with the AMD Athlon 64 San Diego cores. Now to be fair AMD is launching their AMD Athlon 64 x2 dual core processors shortly that will start out higher in price then the the current fasted Pentium D and with that said, the AMD Athlon X2 processors won't be for people that are on pc budget. The Pentium D 2.8 ghz on the other hand starts out around 288 dollars online which is really affordable to people that are on a pc budget and accroding to these benchmarks that I have been seeing, it seems like a best buy imo. So if you are on a pc budget, but want a pc that will last for a good 3 years or more then you should check out the Pentium D processor. If I didn't build the system I have right now I know I would be checking this processor out right now.

One more other thing these dual cores will not work with the 915 or 925x chipsets, you will have to get a 945 or 955x chipset and have at least DDR2 667 (5300) ram to run this processor. So if you already have a 915 or 925x chipset and were thinking of just upgrading to this processor on those chipsets, think again. That's intel for you. :)

Not really, dell is running ddr2-400 and 533 on their dual-core 9100.

ASPIRE ATXB4KLW-AL Antec 400W
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD 3700+ San Diego
Corsair 1GB 2x512
eVGA 6600GT
250GB Hard Drive
Sound Blaster Audigy
Windows XP HOME W/SP2

Well Intel suggest you should run 667 and so did Xbit Labs so that there will be no issues of any kind. i'm just going by what they said. I wouldnn't run anything lower then 667 on a dual core.