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Is clock speed worth it?

C

Cyber Dog

n00b
Joined
Jan 1, 2005
Messages
21
I've currently got a 2.6 GHz Northwood in an Intel D875PBZ board. I wound up getting a sweet Turbo-Cool 510 Express and a couple DiamondMax 10 300's for the holidays, so lately I've been considering more upgrades I could undertake. At first I looked at the latest architectures out there but decided Prescott is by far not worth the upgrade now since performance gains are marginal at best and the cost of overhauling 80% of my components would be huge.

So for the time being, one of the few upgrades that looked really plausible is simply going to a faster Northwood, 3.2 or 3.4ish. They're running low to mid $200s now on pricewatch, so I could afford that...*if* it's worth it. That's where I'd like some opinions. Do you think it's an upgrade worth 200 dollars, or is the jump in clock not worth the cash? If it would be a weak upgrade I guess I can just put my cash into the bank and wait for new things to develop later this year.
 
How are you doing on Ram or a graphics card right now? If you had a different motherboard (you might be able to find one used that's good) you could overclock quite a bit and make up for some of those differences.
 
RAM and video card are serving my purposes well enough...1 gig DDR 400 & a Radeon 9700 Pro AIW. I also considered upgrades in those departments. My conclusions there were its generally an expensive upgrade, especially when theres already new technologies out for both. I don't particularly see a need for more RAM right now...1 gig is serving me fine, and do I really want to be stuck with 2 gigs of DDR1 when the next board I buy in say 6 months will probably require DDR2? Not really....if it were more future proof then sure.

Same goes for vid card...I know its not great anymore (tho it was one of my best purchases EVER when it came out!). But since the world is already moving to PCI-E, do I want to blow 4 or 500 bucks on something that will be useless with the new boards? Again, not really...

Granted I know I won't be taking the processor into my next system either, but at least the price is acceptable for something I'll probably only be using for the range of 6 to 12 months.
 
All of your system is pretty nice the way is it. All of the components are a little old, but not old enough to warrant huge upgrades. If you upgraded the CPU your graphics card might hold you back, and vice versa. You are definitely right about the upgrades and cost, they're not your best option right now. I'd say enjoy it for now and put that money in the bank.
 
A 3.0-3.4GHz Pentium 4 would be a huge upgrade over a 2.6GHz one. If the price is right, it might be a good upgrade to last until your ready for a major overhaul or a new machine.
 
A 3.0-3.4 prescott is not much of an upgrade from a 2.6 northwood. On a clock for clock basis, the northwood and prescott is about equal at around 3.6ghz. A 2.6 northwood is probably close to a 2.8 prescott in terms of performance.
 
Why dont u go buy a real mobo and oc the piss out of your chip? u can hit 3+ghz with that unit on a good mobo!
 
I would have to say go with the 3.4 northwood. I uprgraded from a 2.8 533 mhz bus northwood to this 3.4 800mhz bus northwood and I saw a huge performance increase. If you have the money go for it.

Also a 3.4 northwood would work well with your current motherboard.
 
Not worth it. You're paying for a clock speed bump and nothing else. Your bus speed isnt being increased from 533 to 800 so you won't see the same performance increase >WP< $lipKnot did. 3.2 Northwoods are pretty pricy right now in any case.
 
I had a similar spec until last night (D875PBZ, 2.8C, Radeon 9700 Pro, 1GB PC3500) and, when I had a Radeon 9800 Pro in there for a short while, there was a noticeable increase in performance in games. Of course, after I upgraded to the D915PBL/3.4E/X800 Pro/1GB PC2 4300, things seemed a lot faster, but that's definitely more than the $200 you'd like to spend ;)
 
I have to agree with bitchbreaker. That 2.6 will do 3ghz with no problems on a decent board that can be had for 135 or so. You'd get your faster CPU, a faster bus speed, and it would cost less then a new CPU. Sell your old board on ebay or something to make up some of the cost. I had a 3.2 and I changed to a 2.4 just to get the clock speed increase which helps overall system performance, not just the CPU.
 
How is he going to get faster bus speed?

400 Mhz for $100 isn't worth the trouble.
 
Rix2357 said:
A 3.0-3.4 prescott is not much of an upgrade from a 2.6 northwood. On a clock for clock basis, the northwood and prescott is about equal at around 3.6ghz. A 2.6 northwood is probably close to a 2.8 prescott in terms of performance.
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Are you kidding me? A 3.0GHz Prescott has enough speed to kick the CRAP out of a 2.6 Northwood. Especially if it isn't the 800MHz FSB variety.

The Prescott is slower per clock but be realistic, it's not THAT much slower. I've had both a 3.0E and a 3.0C on the same motherboard and in the same system. In apps you couldn't tell them apart. The Northy was faster in some things and once in awhile the Prescott would be faster at others. However when I got to 3.43GHz the Prescott evened out all the scores. Past that it was the Prescott all the way.

I personally say that if your not getting at LEAST a 400MHz increase in clock speed these days, an upgrade of your CPU isn't worth it. 3.2's aren't that bad. But for $200 bucks I'd definatley get a 3.2C. (Pricewatch has them listed for that price) A 3.2C would get you a 600MHz boost and would be worth the money if you don't want to completely overhaul your machine and go with some newer technologies.

I also agree that the new motherboard and overclocking route is the way to go. That's just as cheap and might get you even better performance. I say might because there is no guarantee's in OC'ing. Since you've already got a i875P board you won't see a performace jump out of a motherboard UNLESS you overclock. At least with a 3.0C you are guaranteed a performance boost.

Talonz said:
How is he going to get faster bus speed?

400 Mhz for $100 isn't worth the trouble.
Click to expand...

He gets the FSB boost from overclocking.
 
Uhh i had a 3.0c and now have a 3.2e...the Pressy smokes the Northwood! and it only gets better as the fsb is raised....so u are wrong..go do your home work then come back... :rolleyes:
 
I've had a 2.8E and 3.0C and a 3.2E, I'm now running a 2.4C and it's faster then the others were at stock MAINLY because I can run the FSB at 277 1:1 with the CPU and memory. You won't be doing that easily on any of the other CPU's. Also, I get the lowest temps, the most stability and the easiest overclocks from it. I didn't even try anything lower then 275 when I put this chip in my board. The 3.2E I couldn't get 3.6, and it was HOT as hell even watercooled with a very high end system. The 3.0C overclocked like dog crap because of it's high multi, and the 2.8E did ok, around 3.7Ghz but still not that high of an FSB. I've had all of these in the past 4 months, and I'm sticking with the cheapest of them, the 2.4C that I have now. BTW, my idle temp with this CPU in a 70 degree room is 78, and I've never gone over 102F and thats with the X800XT PT overclocked and in the loop with the CPU. I know you want more speed, but do the right thing, get the speed without the heat. You know if you get a prescott you'll be watching your temps all the time because you'll never be able to believe that its running as hot as it is (I did anyway, I hate heat!) Prescotts also require alot more power from your PSU, and a mobo that can handle it as well, you're looking at a big upgrade if you want good stability, when if you just got a northwood, it's the only thing you'd have to change. My 2 cents...again.
 
Jiggaman2576 said:
I've had a 2.8E and 3.0C and a 3.2E, I'm now running a 2.4C and it's faster then the others were at stock MAINLY because I can run the FSB at 277 1:1 with the CPU and memory. You won't be doing that easily on any of the other CPU's. Also, I get the lowest temps, the most stability and the easiest overclocks from it. I didn't even try anything lower then 275 when I put this chip in my board. The 3.2E I couldn't get 3.6, and it was HOT as hell even watercooled with a very high end system. The 3.0C overclocked like dog crap because of it's high multi, and the 2.8E did ok, around 3.7Ghz but still not that high of an FSB. I've had all of these in the past 4 months, and I'm sticking with the cheapest of them, the 2.4C that I have now. BTW, my idle temp with this CPU in a 70 degree room is 78, and I've never gone over 102F and thats with the X800XT PT overclocked and in the loop with the CPU. I know you want more speed, but do the right thing, get the speed without the heat. You know if you get a prescott you'll be watching your temps all the time because you'll never be able to believe that its running as hot as it is (I did anyway, I hate heat!) Prescotts also require alot more power from your PSU, and a mobo that can handle it as well, you're looking at a big upgrade if you want good stability, when if you just got a northwood, it's the only thing you'd have to change. My 2 cents...again.
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This is luck of the draw for starters. Generally speaking the chip you get to the highest frequency with a 1:1 memory ratio would be the best. FSB has very little impact save for huge jumps like 533-800FSB. But 800-900 or even 1066 are proven to not make much of a difference.
 
Sir Frag is correct...BTW Sir Frag..good to have some one else thats well informed in this convo... :cool: If my machine shop can eva help ya just let me know :) i build water gear,phase change systems,do custom machining,ect....
 
BitchBreaker said:
Sir Frag is correct...BTW Sir Frag..good to have some one else thats well informed in this convo... :cool: If my machine shop can eva help ya just let me know :) i build water gear,phase change systems,do custom machining,ect....
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Sweeeettttt.............

I've been thinking about getting into water cooling. I'd love to do phase change except the cost is too high for me.

I've been waiting for some SLi Pentium 4 boards to come out. I like the idea of doing a SLi pair of 6800GT's @ Ultra speeds or better with a highly overclocked processor.

It would totally kick ass to have a Prescott over 4GHz with a pair of 6800GT's in SLi running at Ultra speeds or even Ultra Extreme speeds with waterblocks on everything. :eek:
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
Sweeeettttt.............

I've been thinking about getting into water cooling. I'd love to do phase change except the cost is too high for me.

I've been waiting for some SLi Pentium 4 boards to come out. I like the idea of doing a SLi pair of 6800GT's @ Ultra speeds or better with a highly overclocked processor.

It would totally kick ass to have a Prescott over 4GHz with a pair of 6800GT's in SLi running at Ultra speeds or even Ultra Extreme speeds with waterblocks on everything. :eek:
Click to expand...


LOL iv got a 4ghz pressy on air! thanks to Dan at SNT-Systems i can reach 4.4 on his water cooling!....Im trying to get the cash up to move to a DFI 875p chipset 775 mobo and a 3.2 775 chip..that way i can keep my ram and vid card.
 
Well (as I think I said above) I don't plan on moving to a non-northwood arch. until I do a more (expensive) general system overhaul some time down the road. But since OCing remains an option for the current chip, vs buying a chip with a higher stock clock, I'm going to ask another question of you. Despite the fact that I know this same question comes up around here alot, I'm going to ask it again for my specific case: what board? Here's some basic factors to consider in your suggestions:

1) My D875PBZ has quite alot of hardware features for its generation, including the large quantities of USB/IDE/PCI/etc. I don't want any boards that are trimmed down on these features, in other words, the bigger the feature set the better.
2) This is my primary system, so stability is highly important. The main reason I'm running the Intel now (besides the fact that it had a large feature set and high stock speeds) is that in my experience they're *rock* solid. I've seen boards in the past that put all their effort into unique features like overclocking tricks, but have no basic reliability.
3) I've never OC'd a system before. I'm a very quick study at anything related to computers, but if you're going to recommend a board with intensely complex features, make sure to recommend a good manual too. :)
4) My current system (probably obviously) is air cooled, and I want to keep it that way. I've got a Thermaltake Xaser III v1000d with fans up the ying yang, and a Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu HSF already onboard.
 
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