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Upgrading an old classic...

Halon

Halon

Gawd
Joined
Aug 13, 2004
Messages
937
I have an older system with the following specifications:

Celeron D 325 @ stock (2.53 GHz)
Soyo i865PE Dragon 2 Plus
1024 MB DDR400 dual-channel
128 MB Geforce 6600GT
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Intel 10/100+ Pro Management NIC
120 gig Western Digital hard drive
Enlight 420W PSU

I'm interested in bumping up the CPU to the fastest that this system can realistically manage, but am entirely aware of the inflated price-performance ratio that Socket 478 CPUs deliver relative to anything actually marketed in the last two years or so. A 3.0E Prescott with hyperthreading looks about like what I'm in the market for, but the lowest price I've been able to find online was around $70. So here are a couple of questions.

1) What kind of performance improvement could I expect from that upgrade? Bear in mind that this system will largely be concerned with ripping DVDs and CDs as well as some dedicated server work for LAN parties, that it's running Slackware Linux 12, and that the most demanding games I'd probably expect it to run would be Doom 3 and Quake 4.

2) Would another CPU offer a better bang for the buck?

3) How much does hyperthreading really matter? I know that it's not really like having two fully functional CPUs (that's what my C2D 4400's for), but if it doesn't offer a really significant advantage it wouldn't be hard to talk me out of it.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think.
 
1) What kind of performance improvement could I expect from that upgrade?
Click to expand...

Not much. 500MHz in Netburst, and HT support. I wouldn't expect too much, really.

2) Would another CPU offer a better bang for the buck?
Click to expand...
Only if you can find a NorthwoodC for dirt-cheap, and even then, you'd have to overclock it to get something out of it.

3) How much does hyperthreading really matter? I know that it's not really like having two fully functional CPUs (that's what my C2D 4400's for), but if it doesn't offer a really significant advantage it wouldn't be hard to talk me out of it.
Click to expand...
As far as P4's go, why... not get HT? It'd be more of a hassle to find something without HT.

Personally, I'd leave the computer as is. Any money invested would be more or less wasted, and performance gain would be more or less negligible. If you wanted, you could just build an AMD X2 rig, or a E2*** rig.
 
Thats the board that didnt have a PCI lock right?
If it were me id hunt for a used board that overclocks then go garage sale hunting for a chip after you test that one out. Might not be worth it. The northwoods usually topped out at 3-3.2 and the prescotts were just too dang hot as well as being power hungry. If you hit over 3 with the celeron just stick with that.
 
Leman said:
Not much. 500MHz in Netburst, and HT support. I wouldn't expect too much, really.
Click to expand...

and a 50% FSB boost and a quadruppling of l2 cache!

not that a 3.0 Pressy is a hugely fast cpu, but keep in mind that netburst always was very bandwidth/cache sensitive. Intels little trick for the celerons (1/4th the cache, lower FSB) hurts BIGTIME on netburst, which is what gave the celerons their bad rep (in the p2/P3 days celerons were good fun, cheap nicely overclocking chips)

Realisticly id say going from a celly 2 2.53 to a presscot 3.0 should yield a respectable performance boost.

Id say though that for 80-90 bucks you MIGHT be able to find a s939 board and a 3700+ to reuse your DDR ram on, and that will fly compared to the presscot.

But as you say, this is an upgrade for a secondary rig, id say a pressy 3.0 would be a nice little boost for the money
 
I'm probably going to go with DrFreeze's advice on this one. The benchmarks I've seen suggest that I'd get between a 40 and 50% performance boost, especially in anything properly multithreaded. Some digging around online didn't yield any thrilling, must-have combo deals on Socket 939 'boards and CPUs, but I won't be making any kind of final decision for another month or two. Thanks for reading, and for the suggestions.
 
See if you can source a 2nd hand Northwood-C chip instead of a Prescott, they perform roughly the same but the Northwood has much better power consumption.
 
Also, check out the For Sale/For Trade sub-forums here for your CPU as well.
 
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