P4 3.0C Northwood or P4 3.0E Prescott?

R

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Weaksauce
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Jul 16, 2003
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I'm looking to update my gaming capabilities. What would be the better chip for that? I plan on matching the proc with 1GB Corsair XMS ram, and a GeForce 6800GT vidcard. I would like to OC the proc to about 3.2-3.4 or so, and I have a nice heatsink and fan (can't remember the name of it, but it works great on my OC'd 2.4c p4.).

Basically, is the Prescott gonna give me enough added performance to justify the hotter temps? I can't stand when my computer adds heat to my room. :)

Thanks for any advice guys, I hope this isn't a repeat question :)
 
The only game that is faster on the Prescott is Doom3, all other games to date are faster on the Northwood. (Doom3 uses SSE3 instructions when available)

==>Lazn
 
if you can keep it cool, id get the prescott. they overclock just as high as the northwoods when cooled suficiently and more and more programs are going to start using sse3. why not try overclocking your 2.4c more?
 
I'm not very good at OCing things. I get scared that I'm gonna ruin my system, and it's the only one I've got :)

I've had my 2.4 at 2.9 (or thereabouts) and it ran pretty good. I didn't mess with any of the RAM stuff though, so if I tried to go higher, the machine just wouldn't post. I don't know enough about the whole OC thing to do much more, other than bump up the FSB.

I admit it. I'm a noob :) But I'm learning. Slowly but surely.
 
keep bumping up the fsb till it gets unstable then post a thread asking for help, theres alot of 2.4c overclockers on this board, myself included, that are willing to help. you might have a 2.4 that can do 3.4, 3.5, or even higher on your hands. and if you do get yours running at even 3.2, a [email protected] is faster than a stock 3.2. according to sisoft my [email protected] is as fast a prescott 3.6ghz.
 
You did try running a FSB/RAM ratio of 5:4, right? You locked your PCI/AGP at 33/66 MHz right? Don't sell your 2.4 if you haven't tried those things.
 
Haha you guys have inspired me. Now I'm itching to get home from work and mess with it :) I'm sure I'll be posting a, "HELP ME PLEASE!" thread sometime this evening from my fiances laptop! Wish me luck!
 
Well, I messed with some settings last night.

First thing I did was reset the FSB to normal. No OC. Ran some benchmarks and recorded the numbers. It ran fine (obviously) and the temp never went about 40C.

So then I put it back to where I had it (plus a little) and OC'd it to 2.7. Benchmarked again, and the numbers were higher, and the temp stayed at 40C.

OC'd to 2.8, at which point I increased the voltage to 1.625 and set the agp to 66/33. Benched it again, and the numbers were a little higher, and the temp went up to 41C. I'm happy so far.

OC'd to 2.95 and it reset when it got into windows. So I went into BIOS and changed the voltage to 1.65 and had the same problem. I bumped it down to 2.94 and it loaded windows fine, but it froze up during benchmarking. Went back into BIOS and tried raising the voltage on my RAM, but then the darn thing wouldn't post. By this time, I'd finished my 6th beer and was ready for bed, so I called it a night.

Any suggestions on what I can try differently? I'm willing to try lowering my RAM timings, I just don't know how to do that :)

The motherboard is an ASUS p4p800 (I really don't know if it's the delux or not). Chip is a 2.4C P4, ram is (right now) Corsair XMS PC3700 2x256 (which I think is what is holding me back here)
 
Well, if you think that RAM is holding you back, try setting the FSB:RAM ratio to 5:4. Then when you set your FSB to 250 MHz, your processor will be at 3.0 GHz, and your RAM will be at 200 MHz. That way you can take the RAM as a limiting factor out of the equation.
 
Well I stole some time to research at work today and when I got home tonight, I did some more tinkering.

I cleaned my system up first, to get rid of any spyware or other such things. There wasn't much, I'm pretty good about keeping a clean system, but I also did some other tweaks from tweakguides.com and my machine felt a little smoother, even at stock speeds.

Here are my results so far: (bear in mind, with the 3Dm2k3 scores, I don't have sound in that).

2.4GHz (no overclock)
idle temp - 36C
stressed - 39C
3DM2k1 - 14280
3DM2k3 - 5612

2.8GHz (1:1)
idle temp - 36C
stressed - 39C
3DM2k1 - 16077
3DM2k3 - 5764

3.0GHz (5:4 ram@400MHz)
idle temp - 36C
stressed - 44C
3DM2k1 - 16496
3DM2k3 - 5790

I get a little better results with the [email protected] and the ram not OCd, so I think I'm just gonna stay right there. I haven't changed voltage or anything, and I'm guessing I could probably push the FSB up a wee bit more, but for right now, I'm happy with this as it is. I'm going to order more ram and a new sound card to round out this system, and hopefully it will last me another few months until I just can't resist the urge to get a new video card :)

Thanks for the nudges man, I wouldn't have tried this otherwise :)
 
Glad to hear things worked out. Careful, overclocking is addicting. I started out with a 2.4, and now I have a 3.0 with a phase-change unit. Have fun!
 
Go with a Northwood...

maybe later down the road with another stepping or 2 Prescott will be the way to go... but they currently just leak way too much heat.
 
If you have good cooling I don't see a point in not going for the prescott. They have SSE3 which doom3 supports and so will a lot of the newer games. This offers a little bit of a speed increase in those games from what I understand.
 
DMystikaLD said:
If you have good cooling I don't see a point in not going for the prescott. They have SSE3 which doom3 supports and so will a lot of the newer games. This offers a little bit of a speed increase in those games from what I understand.
Click to expand...

Like really good cooling (ie: vaporphase)

Prescott's tax even a good water cooling system. You know if you live in Alaska they might be a good idea. The extra heat they pump out would be good for keeping the room warm. BTW, remember all of that heat has to go somewhere.
 
I wouldn't get a random 3.0 ghz processor. If you look around on the forums, there are usually a few 2.4C for sale that will 3.6 ghz.
 
I don't think he's in the market anymore. He got his 2.4 past 3.0. Why would he trade a 3.0 w/ 1GHz FSB for a 3.0 at 800?
 
Well today I ordered some new RAM. OCZ PC4200 1GB (2x512) to be exact. That should help me somewhat. Even if I don't OC the RAM (which I think I will be able to do a lot better with the OCZ), the extra 512 will help.

I messed around with OCing my 9800pro and got my 3Dm2k3 above 6000. There was some MINOR artifacts, but overall, I did it. So I clocked it back and am enjoying the performance I'm getting. When the newegg gets my new ram here (monday I hope), I'm gonna try to sqeeze a little more outta this puppy. I'd like to have it at 3.2 stable. I'm pretty sure I'll get that :)
 
chrisf6969 said:
Like really good cooling (ie: vaporphase)

Prescott's tax even a good water cooling system. You know if you live in Alaska they might be a good idea. The extra heat they pump out would be good for keeping the room warm. BTW, remember all of that heat has to go somewhere.
Click to expand...

Both my roommate and my RA have prescott's. My RA's runs a little higher than my rommates, idling around 50C, and runs at about 65C with full everything -- but he's using stock cooling.

Secondly, my roommate's idles around 43-44C and under full load he's at about 50C. He's using a zalman 7000.

If you think you need water cooling to have a nice prescott overclock -- you don't know what you're talking about, as both of the people mentioned above have overclocked their chips a good 400mhz.
 
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