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Question, which Intel CPU you like it most?

Pentium 4 660. For $400 you get a CPU that is only marginally slower than a $600 670. With a bigger budget, the 670 is as fast or faster than the Extreme Editions at pretty much everything, and is only $600 vs. $1,000 for the EEs. Gaming performance may be kind of weak compared to AMD's single cores, but they are as good or better at just about everything else. So for an all-around system they are a solid choice.

If I was bargain hunting, a 3.4 GHz Northwood. Runs cooler than the comparably clocked Prescott & often out-performs it at equal clocks. Socket 478 is a dead end, though, so it isn't really a good choice for most folks.

Worst would be Intel's Extreme Editions, they have always been more hype and cost than real performance. IMHO the Pentium D's are kind of underwhelming performance-wise, and most folks won't see a big advantage with dual cores vs. HT, just worse gaming performance (one 3.6-3.8 beats two 3.2s when only one 3.2 is used by the game anyway).
 
Having recently had the opportunity to play around with a few P4 CPU's 5xx series and one 6xx series, (520, 550, 570, and 670) I vote for the 670. IMO, it's best P4 available.
 
CastleBravo said:
IMHO the Pentium D's are kind of underwhelming performance-wise,
Click to expand...

You said a mouthful there! Only way I'd have a Pentium D is if Intel gets the clock speeds up to the 3.6GHz or faster range. Otherwise I'll stick with single core or buy AMD.
 
I personally like my P150 most. It's been with me for almost 10 years now, I think, and it's still serving me, quite literally, in my gateway/firewall/webserver/mail/ftp/www/etc box.
Now that's value for money :)
 
570J ES :) But if I had to buy an intel chip right now i'd get a 630 or 640 and oc the pants off that thing with a 955 board and some ddr 1000 :)
 
Scali said:
I personally like my P150 most. It's been with me for almost 10 years now, I think, and it's still serving me, quite literally, in my gateway/firewall/webserver/mail/ftp/www/etc box.
Now that's value for money :)
Click to expand...

Sounds like my faithful K6-2 450... damn I love that CPU.

I vote for the 2.4GHz P4 Northwood. Pretty OC'able, and cool-running. (Desktops at work all have this CPU. No defective CPUs so far!)
 
Josh_B said:
Sounds like my faithful K6-2 450... damn I love that CPU.

I vote for a non-P4 Intel CPU... 2.4GHz P4 Northwood. Pretty OC'able, and cool-running. (Desktops at work all have this CPU. No defective CPUs so far!)
Click to expand...

I would've agreed with that a year ago, but I recently upgraded to a 3.06 and Hyperthreading is definitely the way to go. It's the cost-effective dual core, as far as I am concerned.
 
Josh_B said:
Sounds like my faithful K6-2 450... damn I love that CPU.

I vote for a non-P4 Intel CPU... 2.4GHz P4 Northwood. Pretty OC'able, and cool-running. (Desktops at work all have this CPU. No defective CPUs so far!)
Click to expand...

Haha, I just built my girlfriend a computer to upgrade her box from the K6-2 500 she has.. I'm gonna do something with it, I don't know what yet.. I've already got a firewall and a webserver (PII Katmai 350MHz and P3 Coppermine 733MHz respectively) so I dunno. I'll figure something out.


When I built the girlfriend's computer, I used a Northwood 2.53, because she didn't want anything totally excessive, and I didn't want heat issues...and it'll suit her use really well.
 
Well my Pentium 4 550 was the best overclocker I ever had. It did 3.85GHz on an aftermarket fan and posted higher than that, but needed more cooling. No doubt I could hit 4GHz+ with that setup if I had water cooling.

My alltime favorite processor, with the highest amount of staying power was my dual Pentium Pro 180MHz chips. They both ran at 200MHz every day of thier lives. It was a high end setup that still managed to give PII's a run for their money in alot of things up to about the introduction of the Pentium II. I used those for gaming for along time and finally retired them as my gaming box, when the PII 266MHz came out. But that was still my second computer and my server up until 2001. After that it was a third machine and a seperate server. Generally performing minor functions until 2002. After that the machine was stripped, and I've kept the boards and processors, as well as some ram. I've used it to test monitors and other hardware from time to time. Still after being nearly 9 years old that combo still works today. Never did that machine lock up or crash during its years of service.

Also, back in the day the Pentium Pro was VERY far ahead of everything else. Its basic architecture is still viable in some form today. It scaled from 150MHz-1.4GHz as the Pentium III and even survives as the basis for the Pentium-M. Granted the Pentium-M is quite a bit different. You get the idea though.
 
Indeed so true. Pentium Pro when released in late 1994? was so far ahead of its time it held it's own for a lonnng time. On die cache thing didn't catch up until much later.

I'm getting leery with AMD and it's subpar chipset support. I'm thinking about going back to Wintel setup. I have an old P4 2.8 ghz wintel machine and this thing absolutely flies in everything else but the highest end games.

I plan on upgrading to anything above 6 ghz Intel cpu. I only upgrade in double mhz increments. Then again, these dual cores starting to tickle my scrotum...hmmm.

Stability is the king.
 
I would have to say when the Pentium III Coppermine was introduced. Adding the L2 Cache to the Core directly increased performance alot.

As for the modern CPUs.... The Northwood line of Pentium 4 were really good.

For the money the Dual Core Pentium Ds are good... its not like you are gonna get horrible performance... if just for the same money, you could get better performance.
 
USMC2Hard4U said:
I would have to say when the Pentium III Coppermine was introduced. Adding the L2 Cache to the Core directly increased performance alot.

As for the modern CPUs.... The Northwood line of Pentium 4 were really good.

For the money the Dual Core Pentium Ds are good... its not like you are gonna get horrible performance... if just for the same money, you could get better performance.
Click to expand...

absolutely true. and i have to agree about the coppermine p3's. as i said, i use one pretty intensively and i get nary a hiccup from the thing. there's always going to be better performance from a different combinations-- it's just a matter of preference. i like having hyperthreading and some other stuff, because I don't always just do gaming-- my PC is for work as well.
 
I would have to say The dixon core mobile PII because it it added 256k on die full speed cache a year before the coppermine giving it a big boost over even the K6-III. Why intel didn't package it for the desktop? Wish I knew.

After that the coppermine PIII, it's still going @1.01ghz and running at a cool 27C full load with an undersized heatsink. P6 is IMO the best cpu architecture Intel had going for them and still has going for them with the mobile Pentium M and the new desktop cores based off it.


The worst? Intel P68 or "netburst" yay for more mhz less performance, I have yet to be impressed.
 
qb4ever said:
I would have to say The dixon core mobile PII because it it added 256k on die full speed cache a year before the coppermine giving it a big boost over even the K6-III. Why intel didn't package it for the desktop? Wish I knew.
Click to expand...

The first on die full speed 256k cache was actually on the Pentium Pro chips in 1995 and in 1996, a 512k was released. Late 1996 or early 1997 the 1MB L2 cache version of the Pentium Pro 200 was released. This was long before Pentium III Coppermine's got it, and long before any competitors did it.

When the Pentium II came out it was essentially a repackaged Pentium Pro with some changes. The largest change was the off die half speed cache. This was done mainly to decrease costs and increase processor yields. This was what brought the P6 Microarchitecture to the home market. The Pentium Pro was expensive to produce back in the day. Plus, the Pentium Pro had known weaknesses when processing 16bit code. They weren't good at it. With that kind of code, the standard Pentium was faster. So they improved the 16bit code execution of the P6 core in the Pentium II, and added MMX instructions to it.

Still all those improvements didn't help in 32bit code excecution when clocked at the same speeds, the Pentium Pro always out ran the Pentium II. There were many articles about this back in the day when the first Pentium II's came out. Later they transitioned to the Xeon. They used MASSIVE amounts of L2 to compensate for it being off die. 2MB on many of the Xeon's. Plus the increased clock speed helped alot.

Later, Intel had some manufacturing breakthrough or something that allowed them to integrate the L2 into the die again, but do so cheaply. That was when the famed Coppermine core came out. I'd bet the reason they did it in the mobile part first, was because cost isn't as much of a concern in higher end notebooks as it is in desktops.
 
When I stated on die I ment PIII style on die integrated into the cpu instead of just on the cpu connected with a full speed bus. Should have mentioned that.

Thanks for a rerun of the P6 history, a long one it is... Though I found one of the strangest Mobile pentiums that is quickly becoming my favorite that is in my winbook xp5.

mobile1.jpg


It's not a tillamook which is on the 0.25 micron process and had 2x16kb of L1 with a minimum speed of 166mhz.
This strange part is at 100mhz with 2x16kb also but is on the 0.35 micon process.
Can anyone shed some light on this?
 
qb4ever said:
When I stated on die I ment PIII style on die integrated into the cpu instead of just on the cpu connected with a full speed bus. Should have mentioned that.

Thanks for a rerun of the P6 history, a long one it is... Though I found one of the strangest Mobile pentiums that is quickly becoming my favorite that is in my winbook xp5.

mobile1.jpg


It's not a tillamook which is on the 0.25 micron process and had 2x16kb of L1 with a minimum speed of 166mhz.
This strange part is at 100mhz with 2x16kb also but is on the 0.35 micon process.
Can anyone shed some light on this?
Click to expand...

The Pentium Pro also was on die and full speed. The Pentium II was off die, but in the same package, and used its own proprietary bus which ran at half the speed of the processor. Intel has been able to do that for a number of years. They started with the Pentium Pro. They dropped that feature on the Pentium II to save on costs. Mobile PII's got it later on simply because cost wasn't as big a factor on higher end notebooks.
 
I'm digging my Pentium M 730. I can run it from 600Mhz - 2.4Ghz. Runs cool'n'quiet at any speed.
 
Pentium 630 - cheap and overclock to 4Ghz+ easily on air

or

P4EE (Gallatin core) if you've got an old 478 system. You can pick up a new 3.2EE OEM chip for $500 now. Overclock it to 3.6+Ghz and its performs better than a 3.73Ghz EE
 
p4 550
but i am thinking about upgrading it to a 670. main reason is the 64bit support, don't want to stay behind and it has double the cache.
 
630, 640 or 650.

I have a 630 thats a great overclocker.

I also have a 650 that is an even better overclocker for less than $100 bucks more than a 630.
 
Lets see, my favorite CPU of all time was probably the PPro 200 1MB. I had 6 of them in my ALR 6x6 until the PSU died and I couldnt find a resonable replacement and parted it out. Then after that I would say its a tie between my P-M 745 or my P4-M 538 ES. Both overclock insanely well, and both were purchased for under $60 :D
 
right now, the best Intel Processor is the Pentium D 820 at around 240 bux. PERIOD
 
I sport the 3.4 ghz P4 Prescott (S478) and it hits 4.12 ghz with ease on water. Course, I can't figure out why I can't get higher. Maybe it's the cap of my cpu.

Course as mentioned, it's a dead end with the S478. I'm waiting on the i975 chipset to swap over to the LGA775 for my main system.

I'm using a P4 630 for my game server/HTPC. I'm not looking forward to the swap. I hope the 65nm process fixes their heat issue.
 
I like the old 100FSB Northwood cores, they ran 133-160 with nary a burp.

My 2.8C and 2.8E are fast, but HT just doesn't cut it in most of my applications, one of my main apps doesn't like HT being on, as it limits some of its functions (not the fault of the CPU). But overall, I have not seen a huge benefit in my uses with HT on.

I can't comment on the OC capability of these two CPU's as they are in Dell's :D

My P4 1.6 is still churning along day in and day out. I'm saving up for a X2 3800. Their performance is just too impressive for me to bypass and the prices on them are dropping rather steadily that by the time I'm ready to buy, I should get sub 320 maybe even sub 300 prices on em.
 
i'll have to go with the 66 fsb coppermines, the 733 was the best, you could buy pc100 sdram and clock up to 100fsb to get an easy (almost) 1.2ghz p3 for a fraction of the price, my coppermine has been clocked like that for almost 4 years now:p
 
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