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Think I would take one of these

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/AMD_64_X2.html

over that processor but I like the review for that processor

That would depend if you are a gamer (AMD 64-bit) or into CAD, 3DMAX or Premier (Pentium D).

According to the reviews I have seen the Pentium D's encoding ability isn't ahead of AMD's in all sectors. Have a look at

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2410

and I think Premier, for instance, is on page 5.

The best thing about the Pentium D will be the price, cheaper than the Athlons, but the performance edge is with the A64 X2 at the moment. And the extreme edition doesn't really give any performance over the standard Pentium D 840.

A pentium M processor with an adapter will smoke both. Check out this article. http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...ookie%5Ftest=1

Most of today's applications don't even push the CPU load on an AMD 64 3500 to 100%. That's why we have benchmarks to quantify the performance gain. Do you care if it takes an additional 30 seconds to complete a task. I DON'T!!!

The best value in the CPU market is an AMD 64 3000 Venice overclocked to +3700 speed. Use a 5:6 memory divider if you have value ram.

Most Intel Pentium D buyers are going to buy Pentium D 820, not the "extreme" 840. Pentium D 820 costs US$270 even in South Korea where AMD Athlon 64 X2 at the lowest clock costs over US$600. So comparing Pentium D with Athlon 64 X2 isn't proper. Athlon 64 was developed for "next-generation" CPU market while Pentium/Pentium 4 is quite old and perhaps should have been replaced years ago. Though Intel has made a lot of money in the recent few years from Celerons and Pentium 4, both Itanium and Pentium 4 Netburst series seem to be Intel's biggest failures yet. Pentium M and Tualatin have been good though not available on the widest platforms.

Most cost-effective AMD CPUs for the average consumers look like Venice at its lowest clock speed. Most cost-effective Intel CPUs are either Celeron D or Pentium D. Celeron D is very cheap and very overclockable but has very small cache memory and has only one core. Pentium D has dual cores and 2MB cache memory but costs at least 2x more than Celeron D. Celeron D, Venice, Pentium D, Athlon 64 X2, Xeon... they are all for different markets. Intel should accelerate their release of next multi-core processors based on something even better than Pentium M Dothan.