Which CPU would be better? 2.8A, 2.8C, 2.8E?

C

Calavaro

[H]F Junkie
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The mainboard used would be
Asustek Mainboard P4P800 SE, Intel 865PE, FSB 800/533/400MHz, Serial ATA150, Raid, WiFi, Sound/Gigabit LAN, 1xAGP8X, USB 2.0, ATX, Socket478 (Dual DDR400).
Or is there another mobo that compares with "addons" and is similarly priced?

All the versions of the 2.8Ghz P4 runs about the same price here. I assume a Prescott should be better, but is it?
This would be a Doom3 machine mainly, but also plenty of gaming with all sorts of games. It will be paired with a Radeon 9700pro and 512MB RAM, with another stick of 512MB added later on.

Also, how does the 2.8C and 2.8E compare in o/c ability and heat output to the 3.0C and 3.0E? The 3.0's are about 50 bux more, and it might be considered if the performace and o/c ability is generally considered better.
 
Theres is no ultimate, one size fits all chip. For some purposes either will be better, for others, AMD or even :eek: Apple. A are budget chips, while C and E are high end chips. Both C and E provide very similar performance, surprisingly.
 
2.8A is 533MHz fsb Northwood
2.8C is 800MHz fsb Northwood
2.8E is 800MHz fsb Prescott

2.8C would be my choice...
 
when in doubt, always go with C

more FSB then A and cooler, better overclocker then E
 
C, there's no comparison seriously.

800FSB, pure Northwood. I mean, this is the P4C + 875 combo we're talking about rite?

The E's run hotter with less performance (a la Williamette comparisons).

A's don't even default to 800fsb, so i'm not to sure on its OCing headroom compared to the C.
 
Mav451 said:
C, there's no comparison seriously.

800FSB, pure Northwood. I mean, this is the P4C + 875 combo we're talking about rite?

The E's run hotter with less performance (a la Williamette comparisons).

A's don't even default to 800fsb, so i'm not to sure on its OCing headroom compared to the C.
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As my first post states. It will be an ASUS with a 865PE chipset.

Anyhow, seems like it is unanimous, C it is. Thanks.
 
0ldman said:
2.8A is 533MHz fsb Northwood
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*2.8A is 533 MHz system bus Prescott, reference sSpecs SL7K9 and SL7D8 if you'd like to verify for yourself.
 
I wasn't positive, I was thinking that the NW 2.8 w/533 didn't have a letter following...
 
I have a 2.8C and am very pleased with the results. I haven't overclocked it though (I have an Intel board). The A version doesn't have hyper threading. I would definatly go with the C, oh wait I did... :confused:
 
get either the 2.8C or E, i personally would go with the E because i think that more and more games are going to start using sse3. prescotts perform better than northwoods in doom3 because of the sse3
 
Yep. Get the E. The prescott's can handle the extra heat just fine. If they couldn't, I highly doubt that Intel would be shipping them to retailers. They're not good overclockers though from what I've heard, but I haven't tried since doom3 is more gpu dependent.. there would be no point for me to overclock.
 
Have the prescotts gotten better performance because of the sse3 even though they have a pipeline that is 9 stages longer?
 
My doom3 seems to perform a bit better. I can actually play High quality on firefights now without it getting too jerky.
 
Calavaro said:
As my first post states. It will be an ASUS with a 865PE chipset.

Anyhow, seems like it is unanimous, C it is. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yeah I know. I jsut remember that Asus and Abit both had 865 boards that performed just as well as the 875's...but maybe I'm wrong? I never actually used them, but its just from what I remember last May (2003).
 
I remember the same thing :) That was when I was looking into buying my system. I went with the 875 though.
 
I'm not judging it based on doom 3 performance. I'm judging it on the fact that NEWER games are starting to use these instruction sets (I.e., Doom3). I saw a noticeable difference in gameplay in doom3, which gives me some insight that it should technically perform better in newer games that also take advantange of the same instruction sets.

I wasn't basing it purely on "doom 3" performance. But I get your point -- a lot of people are upgrading just so they can play doom 3. I upgraded because I had to -- my old p4 lost a pin.
 
DMystikaLD said:
Yep. Get the E. The prescott's can handle the extra heat just fine. If they couldn't, I highly doubt that Intel would be shipping them to retailers. They're not good overclockers though from what I've heard, but I haven't tried since doom3 is more gpu dependent.. there would be no point for me to overclock.
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The thing that I don't like is the heat and power draw. The CPU may be able to handle is, but are the mobo and PSU manufacturer's designing around high power usage for years of usage?

The more power is uses, the more load the power related components are under (duh) which generally means they don't last as long.
 
The marginally better performance of the 'E' series is balanced by marginally worse performance in other applications, when compared to equivalent 'C' models. Combine this with signficantly higher thermal and electrical strain on the power supply and motherboard power sections and I find the 'E' series Pentium 4 hard to recommend.
 
xonik said:
The marginally better performance of the 'E' series is balanced by marginally worse performance in other applications, when compared to equivalent 'C' models. Combine this with signficantly higher thermal and electrical strain on the power supply and motherboard power sections and I find the 'E' series Pentium 4 hard to recommend.
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The E series chips use less power than the C series chips. Or at least, this is what I was let to believe because my stock settings use 1.345 VCORE instead of 1.4xx. But I do not know much about that area... so yeah.. maybe someone can shed some light on this?

But if you're right on par with that statement -- I agree with you. However, I have the requirements so I felt it was an easy choice to go with the prescott. Also.. I haven't noticed any worse performance in UT2k4 or Farcry. The same goes with standard applications -- so I'm not really sure what you're talking about there.
 
DMystikaLD said:
The E series chips use less power than the C series chips. Or at least, this is what I was let to believe because my stock settings use 1.345 VCORE instead of 1.4xx. But I do not know much about that area... so yeah.. maybe someone can shed some light on this?
Click to expand...
Power draw is made up of the product of voltage and current draw. Prescott has a lower input voltage but a significantly higher current draw, due to substantially higher current leakage at the transistor level. Multiply the current draw times the voltage, and do the same for the Northwood, and you would find that the Prescott draws more power. Intel's own published specifications say the same thing.
But if you're right on par with that statement -- I agree with you. However, I have the requirements so I felt it was an easy choice to go with the prescott. Also.. I haven't noticed any worse performance in UT2k4 or Farcry. The same goes with standard applications -- so I'm not really sure what you're talking about there.
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Ace's Hardware summarizes nicely what I'm talking about:

http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000322

The two processors perform only slightly different from one another, so I wouldn't expect you to notice it.
 
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