p4 3.0c -> 3.4e

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rawd

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I wont be upgrading for a while so i'm wondering if its worth maxing out the mobo with the fastest supported cpu. Im running a ABIT IC7 MAX3

Will be going p4 3.0c -> 3.4e 478p 800mhz

Any thoughts to help me out? Thanks in advance
 
i'm not an intel guy, but i've stuck around long enough to know that prescott generally blows the big one...C i see, that's northwood! with any luck at all, you should be able to take that northwood to 3.4ghz, be running cooler, and be faster than a prescott at the same clock speed...
 
You can easily OC that 3.0C to 3.4, at which point it would be a faster system than if you had the 3.4E. Realistically, you should be able to get at least 600mhz out of that 3.0C on air, so if you need to upgrade anything, get a better HSF if required.
 
I agree with the other two posters. Check which stepping your CPU is. I've gotten 3.8GHz with decent air cooling out of a 3.0C.
 
I got the 3.0C too, and I have no plans on upgradeing anything anytime soon. In another year it'll be DDR2, PCI-e, and now maybe smithfield too. Don't buy liferafts for the sinking ship. Just let it go into the deep.
 
I agree with the other posters in the thread in theory. Of course in reality there's no guarantee with overclocking.

a 3.4e from 3.0c is not worth the upgrade IMO. get a kick ass heatsink and ramp that thing up. It's funner like that anyways.

or: get a cheap Water kit. you will always be able to use that if you decide to upgrade to a whole new platform in the future. Just make sure you hold on to the adapter clips.
 
Ok thanks guys, I will keep the 3.0c. I put this system together in order to OC at a later date

BigBadBiologist, CPUID reports my stepping is Family F, Model 2, Stepping 9, Revision D1

I purchased 2x512 Corsair pc4000 twinx, timings are 3-4-4-7. Mobo is Ic7 Max3

I'll give it a go this weekend, any pointers before i get going? ive been told not to push vcore past 1.7

PS. I have air cooling, Zalman Cu/Alum heatsink
 
yeah, you'll wanna keep it 1.7 or less, anything above that is iffy, as i have heard of many cases of SNDS (sudden northwood death syndrome) with voltages higher than 1.7....I'm assuming you have the 7000Al-Cu which will be sufficient for your purposes. Be sure to clean everything off and i'd re-apply fresh AS5 and let it set in...PC4000...rated to 250FSB which would yield you 3750mhz....plenty of headroom there...By steppings i'm sure he meant the S codes from the chip and place of manufacture and also the D1 part which you have given us...

I'd start off slow once you get the heatsink re-set with fresh goo...try increasing the FSB in 5ish mhz increments till you hit a wall, increase vcore a bit till it comes back, test for stability using many popular tools (Prime, Toast, F@H, 3dMarks, etc...), adjusting settings as nessesary to attain stability, and repeat till she don't go any farther...of course there's other tweaks you can do as well, but i am unfamiliar with your particular board...some allow NB voltage tweaking and a host of other OC Friendly options...but since you're not going for a world record here, i'd just stick with the basics....
 
a d1 stepping should be good for somewhere between 3.7-3.8GHz @ 1.65V max on decent air cooling. I don't like going above that without water cooling.
 
yeah man, northwoods oc a lot easier than prescotts..unfortunately i have a prescott (not for long!)
 
well now hold on.... 3.oc ussually top out at 3.65-3.7 on air for a FSB of around 245
that said IF you decide to splurge and get a 3.4E the latelst bios for your board allows you to select a 14 mulltiplier for your 3.4E.... now that being said a 3.4E on your cooling will probably max out around 3.7-3.75 BUT that will net you a FSB of say 267+ and memory of 536+ DDR! if your memory can handle it.
and that 3.0C will hit 250 FSB IF YOUR LUCKY overall the extra few MHZ+FSB+memory+SSE3+1mbl2 will be a bit of a upgrade so if all that is worth the $280+ the 3.4E's are going for then yes its worth getting a 3.4E
 
I agree, the features of the prescott are nicer than the northwoods, but the northwoods do OC alot better than the prescotts. I would buy the prescott if it was say, 4 months ago, but I would just save the money you would spend for the 3.4 and put it towards your smithfield upgrade like im doing :p
 
Peach said:
I agree, the features of the prescott are nicer than the northwoods, but the northwoods do OC alot better than the prescotts. I would buy the prescott if it was say, 4 months ago, but I would just save the money you would spend for the 3.4 and put it towards your smithfield upgrade like im doing :p
Click to expand...


I dont think the northwoods overclock better, they are just a bit cooler.

Considering that the 3.4e is already at 3.4 it will hit its ceiling quicker then the 3.0c. And out of curiosity which features do you think are better on the prescott that make a difference in the end?
 
The pressy has two things the nw doesn't; 512k more L2 cache and SSE3. Good luck ever needing either ;) , or at least being able to tell they are there.
 
I notice a difference between a 2.8c northwood and a 2.8 pressy, i mean, prescott, because of the cache.
 
Overclock that bad boy.

You've got everything you need,

ABIT IC7 - best OC'ing mobo around

PC4000 - some fast ram, but if you're not going to overclock its worthless b/c your performance will be slower than reg. 3200. B/c of timings

Zalman HSF - great cooler.

D1 stepping 3.0C - I would think you could hit 3.4Ghz easily, which will out perform a prescott at the same speed. Northwoods clock for clock are faster than Prescotts.
 
MEMORY!!
Geez 3-4-4-7 timings absolutely suck!!! Take the money tyou were going to spend and get some G.Skill PC 4400 LE Then you can get the most out of your system whereever it will run. you might find it will run higher with less effort with the better mem. that is what I found with my 3.0C. As soon as I put in the G.Skill SPEED HAPPENED!! have a look at these timings and clocks! You will notice that PAT is also enabled.
s.jpg

I assure you it will hammer the mem you have now.

WZ
 
Peach said:
I notice a difference between a 2.8c northwood and a 2.8 pressy, i mean, prescott, because of the cache.
Click to expand...

But the Northwood has a much higher FSB, which helps it's performance.
 
chrisf6969 said:
D1 stepping 3.0C - I would think you could hit 3.4Ghz easily, which will out perform a prescott at the same speed. Northwoods clock for clock are faster than Prescotts.
Click to expand...

Well, depends, a 3.4E would overclock quite a bit further than a 3.0C would, and at the same FSB the Prescott's advanced branch prediction and new pipeline architecture would get the better performance.
 
rawd said:
Ok thanks guys, I will keep the 3.0c. I put this system together in order to OC at a later date

BigBadBiologist, CPUID reports my stepping is Family F, Model 2, Stepping 9, Revision D1

I purchased 2x512 Corsair pc4000 twinx, timings are 3-4-4-7. Mobo is Ic7 Max3

I'll give it a go this weekend, any pointers before i get going? ive been told not to push vcore past 1.7

PS. I have air cooling, Zalman Cu/Alum heatsink
Click to expand...
I agree with the recommendation to get better RAM. 3-4-4-7 is just about as loose as RAM timings go - and you needed to run at those timings just for stock-speed operation. That leaves you very little room for OC'ing - you might not be able to OC your FSB past 208MHz (832MHz effective) with that memory.
 
rawd said:
Ok thanks guys, I will keep the 3.0c. I put this system together in order to OC at a later date

BigBadBiologist, CPUID reports my stepping is Family F, Model 2, Stepping 9, Revision D1

I purchased 2x512 Corsair pc4000 twinx, timings are 3-4-4-7. Mobo is Ic7 Max3

I'll give it a go this weekend, any pointers before i get going? ive been told not to push vcore past 1.7

PS. I have air cooling, Zalman Cu/Alum heatsink
Click to expand...

I got the same stepping (F-2-9-D1) 2.8C and it's a given winner for o/c-ing..... ;)
Check my sig....
Good luck.

Mike
 
I think my ram is giving me problems

I can boot up at 227 FSB (3.4ghz) but it is making Prime95 unstable right off the bat

Vcore 1.55, Vdimm 2.8, Agp 1.65
 
Up your vcore dude. Check out my sig, definately stick with the northy. Watercooling setup is on the way! Hope to get 3.6 outta this 2.8.
 
thanks jagzzzzzz, vcore to 1.6 looks like it worked

gonna let prime95 do its thing, thanks again for everyone helping out a newb in need
 
that's what we're here for...

but i disagree with new memory for the clock he is trying to achieve...if indeed it's PC4000 that's 250FSB at 3-4-4-7 or whatever...which would almost top the chip out on air...if he was going for the absolute max this chip could do, new memory couldn't hurt, but that's up to him in the end...he could also try upping the voltage slightly to the memory and try to tighten up the timings a bit...he should have a little play at the speed he's at right now...
 
To tighten timings, just lower latencies and test with memtest , right?

Anything I shouldnt do, i read something about lowering tras might lower performance

ive hit 2.5-3-3-7 and memtest is ok
 
lowering improves perfo for most, just try it and test with sisandra and you should see better BW which is better perf. Good luck. Did you jump staright to 1.6? Try it a little lower also, only pump it what it needs to remain stable.
 
I have been reading some of this for awhile and kinda had the same dilemma. what would i benifit from the 3.2e pressy or the 3.0c northwood?
 
I've got a 3.0 pressy sitting on a table and my 2.8 NW is installed in my Max3 running at 257 FSB - 3.6MHZ, mem at 1:1. I can get the pressy to run stable at 3.7 but it is still slower than the NW. The pressy isn't a bad chip, but since I have it as a spare, I've been really abusing this 2.8 NW. Right now my vcore is at 1.72, but my temps are good for air, I think; 36c idle 52c mac load (2x prime95). The pressy has good temps when I OC it too though, but it sure does draw a lot of juice. With my old PSU I could actually hear the fans slow down when running Prime95 with the presscott! This does not happen with the NW when I OC it.
 
dual core thats what for...there no sense in throwing money into technology thats being phased out. thats like building a brand new pentium 3 machine. but if he bent on it then the 3.0c is the best bet
 
yeah but i wanna spend money now !! :/ lol and i dont really want to upgrade mobo yet. but this is like a cheep fix till dual core comes out. then ill have a pc for my girlfiend to play on :)
 
LOL we got that out of the way this morning. Anyhow what would be the best cost to performance choice the 3.0c or the 3.2e? Also the pressy has 1mb L2 dose that make that big of a diff?
 
the 3.0c is overclocking perfection but if you dont plan to oc then get a 3.2e
 
Dude, spend what, 50 bucks on a nice HSF for your 3.0 and OC the crap out of it! I love my SP-94. Does a great job. Actually, I am considering snatching my kids 2.6C and plopping it in here for a spin.

In other words, me having a 3.0 presscott was pretty much circumstance; I traded an older vid card for it. It's a good CPU, but in no way an upgrade from my 2.8 when at stock speed or OC'd.

You want to spend now? Get a top of the line vid card.
 
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