Can A Pentium D Still Play Modern Games?

[Solaris17]

Masochistic tendencies?

You're looking at a Netburst chip.

The missing Instructions/Extensions from a decade ago are copious:
(AES-NI, CLMUL, FMA3, SSE4, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, TXT, and TSX if Wikipedia is to be believed)


All of that, and you want to see if this thing (overclocked) can actually still play games. I applaud the idea, but I'm pretty sure laying hands on DDR2 RAM, finding a decent board, and starting off so far behind the line is a joke. If you went out and spent a couple of hundred dollars you'd wind up with something better by almost every metric. I start off with this because what is being asked is to dredge up something very few people would have had access to, not asking whether a somewhat dated setup needs to be retired.


Not for nothing, that Pentium D doesn't support turbo, idle, or speed steps. It only has two physical cores (4 threads with HT). Worst of all, it's got a TDP of 130 watts at its stock 3.73 GHz.

With the money you'd save from your power bill in a single year you could likely break even with a whole new system, rather than this "$30 and spare parts" rig. If this isn't for the gamer on a budget, isn't for the enthusiast, isn't for the purist (modern GPU and SSD isn't reproducing what was around at the time), and isn't even an experiment that could feasibly be reproduced as a novelty (read: limited component availability and pricing) then what is this? Other than the proverbial freak show, something to gawk at, I'm not understanding why you'd put the effort into this. Haven't we come to the conclusion collectively that Netburst was a mistake worth burying?

I like you hoffer, but im really starting to get the feeling your not great at parties. Not everything needs a logical motive behind it. Everyone knows this system is going to be slower than 95+% of the systems on TPU, but sometimes you just say fuck it.

 

[R-T-B]

I'm genuinely curious how it'll do because if it does ok, you might be able to build a legit atom gaming system or something (provided you have PCIE of some kind). I bet some of those go toe to toe with a P4 on at least a per clock basis...

Strictly speaking, I'm in it just to see how well a piss poor CPU can do because I'm curious how much we really use CPU in common games today.

I like you hoffer, but im really starting to get the feeling your not great at parties. Not everything needs a logical motive behind it. Everyone knows this system is going to be slower than 95+% of the systems on TPU, but sometimes you just say fuck it.

I bet he'd go nuts if he knew I once tried to run a bitcoin miner on a G5 (compiled from source) PowerPC in 2014 just for shits and giggles. It drew like 600 watts and made less than one cent that evening...

 

[Retrorockit]

Somehow it runs Firestrike without all those instruction sets. I think that's amazing. He's revealed some truth here. I don't know how many times I've heard "You can't overclock a Dell". "BTX is no good"." LGA775 is obsolete". All of it wrong. My Core2 chip received many years of support along the way. But P4 was left for dead 10 years ago. I think it's very interesting that he can get a modern GPU to work with it at all.

I wonder what % score he gets in Firestrike. I'm at 58%. He might be mixing it up with tablets, or smartphones who knows.

 

[GoldenX]

Can I ask about CPU utilization while running the SSD tests? To see if it is a controller or CPU bottleneck.

 

[newtekie1]

I applaud the idea, but I'm pretty sure laying hands on DDR2 RAM, finding a decent board, and starting off so far behind the line is a joke.

With the exception of the processor, I had everything else laying on the shelves in my basement.

I wonder what % score he gets in Firestrike. I'm at 58%. He might be mixing it up with tablets, or smartphones who knows.

The Firestrike was right around 28-30%, I can't remember exactly.

Can I ask about CPU utilization while running the SSD tests? To see if it is a controller or CPU bottleneck.

I didn't really look, but I'll run it again next weekend and let you know.

 

[cdawall]

I would be curious how it does. I have some old Athlon 64 stuff if anyone wants to see how those do.

 

[GoldenX]

I'm compiling Gentoo on a 478 Celeron D, to see how low can I take the memory consumption. Everything compiled with Os and march=native.

 

[player927]

Why don't you try to put a second-hand LGA 771 Quad-Core CPU on it? Now I am using Xeon L5408 and overclocked to 3.6Ghz on a motherboard of GIGABYTE EP35-DS3 with 8G DDR2 800Mhz memory, a 64G Kingston V300 SSD and a VGA of Dataland Radeon HD4860, it can calculate 1M digits of pi in 13 seconds and the grade of the Fritz Chess Benchmark is more than 10,000, roughly same as i5-4430!

How about this?

 

[AhokZYashA]

wow,
and i thought i have the most bottlenecked system before i upgraded, which is an E7400 @3.5GHz with a GTX670

you beat me hands down sir..

i cant play anything decent in that E7400, but YMMV
i would love to see the end results

 

[newtekie1]

you beat me hands down sir..

If it helps any, when I first thought this idea up, I was going to put my 980Ti in the system...

 

[Toothless]

wow,
and i thought i have the most bottlenecked system before i upgraded, which is an E7400 @3.5GHz with a GTX670

you beat me hands down sir..

i cant play anything decent in that E7400, but YMMV
i would love to see the end results

Some dunce on YT commented he had a FX-"8 core" with four Titan X's. Even if he had a 9k series that's a bottleneck waiting to crack.

 

[Nordic]

If you have the game, I would be interesting in seeing the min max and average fps in the game Natural Selection 2.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

I like you hoffer, but im really starting to get the feeling your not great at parties. Not everything needs a logical motive behind it. Everyone knows this system is going to be slower than 95+% of the systems on TPU, but sometimes you just say fuck it.

I get the idea of a retro build. You use what was available at the time, and show what was possible at a given time. While not particularly useful, the motivation is showing what we were capable of at a point in time. Not my particular thing, but interesting enough.

I get the idea of a junk drawer build. Seeing what you can get out of discarded parts is also fun. The point here being an expenditure of nothing to get the best performance available. This isn't that, because we start off with the "I spent $30 on a CPU that was once $1000" statement.

I even understand a limiting component build, like the way PCI-e tests were run on this site, to determine where the bottleneck is on a system. That definitely isn't the case, given an SSD and a 970 GPU are utilized.


What I don't get is testing a chip that was expensive enough upon release that it didn't sell well, sold for a limited time because the architecture got spanked. and trying to see how well it runs games produced a decade later. I could see testing an early Core2duo, because those suckers are still floating around. Heck, I've worked on several Core2 systems in the last year and I'm not really an IT provider professionally. This isn't that.

"Just because" is a stupid justification for anything. I'd presumed there was something I'm missing here, and hoped for enlightenment. So far everyone is agreeing this will be a train wreck. If the life of the party is the guy who gets drunk and pees into your potted plants, then I don't want to go to your party.

 

[R-T-B]

"Just because" is a stupid justification for anything.

I think this statement just oozes "party pooper..."

Some things are done for idle curiosity. Not everything in life has purpose, nor should it.

 

[Toothless]

I think this statement just oozes "party pooper..."

Some things are done for idle curiosity. Not everything in life has purpose, nor should it.

Like my laptop overclocking or messing around to see what happens when a diabetic eats ice cream sandwiches for breakfast (my breakfast this morning actually, with a side of insulin)

It's what drives new findings.

 

[AhokZYashA]

If it helps any, when I first thought this idea up, I was going to put my 980Ti in the system...

i would love to see it just for the lulz

i bet if the GPU can talk i will say " is that all you got"

 

[Frick]

It would be interesting to see how something like a Wolfdale would stack up to it

 

[RejZoR]

Only thing this CPU will struggle with are games that actually use more than 2 cores. If it's overclocked so high, you're compensating age a bit with that. Cache size, it helps, but I don't think it makes that big of a difference in games. Also, instructions, I wonder how many games even support SSE3/4 and FMA instructions. I'm guessing like 2 or 3 maybe.

Only way to really know is to just try. I'd be interested to see how it fares in new games if you pair it with a somewhat capable graphic card. I had a similar situation years ago when I had Celeron 333MHz and I was in the need for upgrade so I sticked a GeForce 2 MX in the system. And the difference was quite huge even though CPU was starving everything and it was something people generally used Voodoo 2, Voodoo 3 and RivaTNT2 cards with it.

You'll greatly improve the average framerate, but you'll be CPU limited for sure. I think finding a higher tier LGA775 would be a good idea. Like something from Qxxxx range (Q8400 I think was the most notable example). The quad cores. LGA775 versions should be worth pretty much nothing these days, but if you OC them they'll still be pretty decent option.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Loads of the stuff i do has no purpose other than experimentation and fun

like what i did yesterday. Defo subbing this thread

 

[Keullo-e]

I had a D935 @ 4GHz (thanks to crappy MoBo w/o vcore adjustment, that was the stable limit) paired with 4GB DDR2-1000 & HD4850 OC ~5 years ago, and I have to admit it ran games pretty fine when thinking that it was an old NetBurst chip. I wouldn't try Battlefield 4 with it though.

 

[R-T-B]

Loads of the stuff i do has no purpose other than experimentation and fun

like what i did yesterday. Defo subbing this thread

You were sliced in half by what appears to be sharp, geometric shapes?

Ouch.

Like my laptop overclocking or messing around to see what happens when a diabetic eats ice cream sandwiches for breakfast (my breakfast this morning actually, with a side of insulin)

It's what drives new findings.

That or it kills you.

Let's find out!

 

[Naito]

I could see testing an early Core2duo, because those suckers are still floating around. Heck, I've worked on several Core2 systems in the last year and I'm not really an IT provider professionally.

That's true. How about even some of the newer generations? I think people sometimes forget that Westmere and Sandy Bridge are now 6 and 5 years old, respectively. I remember marveling at them (well, SB anyway) all those years ago, now work has me turfing models like the i5-650s and i5-2500s in skip like nothing they're worth...

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

That's true. How about even some of the newer generations? I think people sometimes forget that Westmere and Sandy Bridge are now 6 and 5 years old, respectively. I remember marveling at them (well, SB anyway) all those years ago, now work has me turfing models like the i5-650s and i5-2500s in skip like nothing they're worth...

My Westmere X5670 runs at 4.5ghz - 12 threads. I wont upgrade till the system dies.....i dont need to......my pc games beautifully.

 

[cdawall]

Some dunce on YT commented he had a FX-"8 core" with four Titan X's. Even if he had a 9k series that's a bottleneck waiting to crack.

Admittedly it would depend on the game being played. At least he has enough pci-e lanes to run them all haha

 

[newtekie1]

Why don't you try to put a second-hand LGA 771 Quad-Core CPU on it? Now I am using Xeon L5408 and overclocked to 3.6Ghz on a motherboard of GIGABYTE EP35-DS3 with 8G DDR2 800Mhz memory, a 64G Kingston V300 SSD and a VGA of Dataland Radeon HD4860, it can calculate 1M digits of pi in 13 seconds and the grade of the Fritz Chess Benchmark is more than 10,000, roughly same as i5-4430!

How about this?

I've got plenty of 775 processors if I wanted to put something in and use this computer long term. The motherboard was put in storage with a Xeon X3220, I've got a few Q6600s laying around, a Q8400, and a Q9650. I'm sure if I went digging I'd find even more. But I'm not seriously going to keep using this computer. Once I'm done with this I'll probably take it apart and put everything back on the selves.

I get the idea of a junk drawer build. Seeing what you can get out of discarded parts is also fun. The point here being an expenditure of nothing to get the best performance available. This isn't that, because we start off with the "I spent $30 on a CPU that was once $1000" statement.

The CPU was the only expense, and it was only $28 shipped to my door. If I was really concerned I could turn around and sell it on ebay and either break even or make a small profit. But I think I'll keep it and add it to my collection. If I really wanted to, I could have just use the PD 805 or 930 I already had, but I wanted the 965 for hyperthreading simply to test FarCry4, which won't even start up if you don't have 4 logical processors. Yeah, I could use the dual-core hack, but it doesn't really work that well in my testing. Yeah, it runs, but performance is shit. And the performance is bad because of the hack, not because of the hardware, I even installed the hack on my i7 rig and it caused the performance to go to shit.

"Just because" is a stupid justification for anything. I'd presumed there was something I'm missing here, and hoped for enlightenment. So far everyone is agreeing this will be a train wreck. If the life of the party is the guy who gets drunk and pees into your potted plants, then I don't want to go to your party.

Curiosity, IMO, is a perfectly good justification to do something.

I think this statement just oozes "party pooper..."

Some things are done for idle curiosity. Not everything in life has purpose, nor should it.

Indeed, computers are my hobby, so doing things like this is fun for me. I also have this thing for seeing what happens when you try to do things with very under-powered hardware. When Vista came out and said it needed 1GB of RAM, I installed it on my laptop with only 512MB just to see what would happen. It actually was usable, then I took a stick out just to see if it would run on 256MB. It did, it just won't install with less than 512MB.

It would be interesting to see how something like a Wolfdale would stack up to it

I'm thinking about tossing a Q6600 in this, overclocking a little, and running through all the benchmarks again just to see the difference.