can Celeron D do gaming?

[number6]

I may not know as much as you do about the current processor trends, but I do know that the XP processors can be purchased for a lot less and they offer excellent peformance for the money. If you want to go 64 bit it seems AMD is way ahead of Intel.

[Arkaign]

I may not know as much as you do about the current processor trends, but I do know that the XP processors can be purchased for a lot less and they offer excellent peformance for the money. If you want to go 64 bit it seems AMD is way ahead of Intel.

Sempron 64 and Celeron D can be found for $60-80 .. Athlon XP has been taken out of production, and the remaining parts in distribution are selling for the same (often higher) prices.

Conclusion : no sense buying a slower, non-64-bit AXP .. when faster alternatives are the same price or less, and go on mobos with more features (PCIe/Sata2/etc)

[Ed Oscuro]

Upgrading to decent video cards and processors once a year is a LOT cheaper than buying a top of the line system. The 6600GT is about the best choice for the $$.

Just so we're clear, you're saying more value for the money at the cost of never being able to play any games at top settings. Not that this is bad as it keeps your experience pretty stable - my current monitor doesn't do much more than 1024x768, and I've got a 6800 Ultra on a Compaq P110, so I've got something of a mixmatch of monitors with graphics cards here.

There's nothing wrong with this approach; I just disagree with it and would rather have the extra performance. I'll stick with a graphics card for years though - it was only a few months ago that I swapped my GeForce 4 out of my second-best FPS rig.

[Arkaign]

That's great for you Ed, and I'm not denying that it's NICE to be able to crank details to the max, etc. It's just not for everyone, and certainly not for the price. It's a reason so many gamers are defecting to consoles full-time.

You can have a quality gaming experience on the PC with midrange parts, but in the end it's in the eye of the beholder.

It's simply unfeasible for most people to justify $1,000, $1,500, or more .. for a gaming PC.

But, grats on that video card, it's what I use, and it's nice

EDIT : Also, there's a ton of games you can play with the settings jacked up on a 6600GT .. popular ones even, like World of Warcraft, and a slew of other RPGs and RTS titles. Most sports games can be cranked easily as well. Imho the payoff on a 6800 and higher right now is for 1280x1024 and higher rez.

[number6]

I may not know as much as you do about the current processor trends, but I do know that the XP processors can be purchased for a lot less and they offer excellent peformance for the money. If you want to go 64 bit it seems AMD is way ahead of Intel.

Sempron 64 and Celeron D can be found for $60-80 .. Athlon XP has been taken out of production, and the remaining parts in distribution are selling for the same (often higher) prices.

Conclusion : no sense buying a slower, non-64-bit AXP .. when faster alternatives are the same price or less, and go on mobos with more features (PCIe/Sata2/etc)

True that you can get the processor for about the same amount, but what about motherboard, memory and video card? The answer is you are going to spend a lot more to go with the latest sets. You can still get a lot of bang for the buck with the "obsolete" processors and still get a decent gaming bang. I guess my point is if you are going for modern bang for the buck go AMD64 if not go last generation AMD/Intel.

[Arkaign]

I may not know as much as you do about the current processor trends, but I do know that the XP processors can be purchased for a lot less and they offer excellent peformance for the money. If you want to go 64 bit it seems AMD is way ahead of Intel.

Sempron 64 and Celeron D can be found for $60-80 .. Athlon XP has been taken out of production, and the remaining parts in distribution are selling for the same (often higher) prices.

Conclusion : no sense buying a slower, non-64-bit AXP .. when faster alternatives are the same price or less, and go on mobos with more features (PCIe/Sata2/etc)

True that you can get the processor for about the same amount, but what about motherboard, memory and video card? The answer is you are going to spend a lot more to go with the latest sets. You can still get a lot of bang for the buck with the "obsolete" processors and still get a decent gaming bang. I guess my point is if you are going for modern bang for the buck go AMD64 if not go last generation AMD/Intel.

Ah, yes.. for anyone who is currently running a Socket A/462 mobo, it could make sense for them to buy a faster Athlon XP than whatever cpu they're already running. Otherwise, the price of memory and mobos for the newer procs is virtually the same. End cost of :

Athlon XP 2800
Celeron D 336
Sempron 3100+

will come out pretty much identically, including mobo/video card/memory, etc.

[unwinddesign]

It will run today's games at 1024x768 with high detail, or 1280x1024 with some stuff turned down, just as fine as can be. If you want 1600x1200 or 1920x1280, or lots of FSAA, then you're not going to find *ANY* card in the price range that can do it.

Still, 1024x768 with good detail settings is fine for most people.

[/color]

Boot up Age of Empires 3 and try that. With my OC'd 6800GT, I am hitting a solid 30 FPS with shaders turned to medium, anti-aliasing off, particle effects at medium and running at 1280 x 1024. A 6800 GT. Idling with all effects turned on to high, I get 15 FPS.

But then again, Age of Empires 3 probably has just a "crap" game engine and not really representative of real world "today's new games" performance.

[Arkaign]

Actually, yes the engine does blow serious chunks. It's inconsistent and a poor use of DX9. Btw, OpenGL > DX.

The thread on the demo is up to 16 pages here, oh the suffering lol : http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=369163

Pointing out a game that is coded horribly doesn't mean anything other than that you can always find games like that. It doesn't even look impressive when you crank the details up. I can run it fairly smoothly at 1280x1024 with settings near the highest. At the same time, my venice 3000 is at 2.6ghz, when I clock it down to 1.8Ghz, it runs almost identically, which tells me that it's probably a video-card limited game anyway.

Also, a friend has an Athlon XP with a Radeon 9550, and he plays it just fine at 1024x768 (the maximum res of his 15" LCD).