Mac Pro Xeon vs PC Pentium

[Amigalander]

With the news of the recent updates, I'm strongly considering replacing my aging home PC with a Mac Pro. One of the questions I have is about Xeon compatibility for Windows games. I haven't heard anything about a lack of compatibility, so I assume there is no issue, but I wanted to be sure nonetheless.

I'm planning on using Bootcamp to run some PC games and older software. What are the practical differences between a Xeon and a Pentium? Will the Mac Pro run anything a Pentium PC would run without exception?

Thanks.

 

[ReanimationLP]

A Xeon is just a workstation/server class of the Pentium/Core/Core2 series of processors.

Anything that runs on your P4 box, will run on the Mac Pro under Windows XP.

 

[Eidorian]

They're all x86 anyways. Xeon is just Intel's moniker for it's server class processors but they're the same technology as the Pentium chips were and Core 2 is now.

I'm looking for a Xeon X3220 but it's effectively a Core 2 Quad Q6600 in the end.

 

[macuserx86]

It is a huge difference. Pentium was Intel's old architecture, while as new Xeons are based on the Core architecture. That said, there are no compatibility issues, so replace that PC ASAP!

Hope that helped!

 

[newtech]

Xeon and Core 2 devote a great deal of chip real estate to remain 100% compatible with legacy software/hardware ( 8080 code runs unmodified ).