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3GHz Northwood vs. 3GHz Prescott

Z

Zucarita9000

Golden Member
This is the last item left for me to buy. I'm leaning towards the Northwood, wich is cooler and possibly faster than the Prescott. The Northwood is about $40 more expensive.

The Prescott is more widely available, but I'm concerned about heat and power consumption. I know the E0 stepping Prescotts are much better, but I don't know if Intel is releasing the new core with socket 478.

I'll be using a Zalman 7000B Al-Cu cooler. I wont be overclocking either. I just want a quite, stable system.
 
You don't overclock so save the $40 is my advice. The performance advantages of the NW aren't that significant in most areas and Presshot actually wins some benchies too now. No reason not to pick the cheaper one when the difference will cover the cost of the cooler.
 
Originally posted by: FlameDeer
Save your $40 is a better choice and go for Prescott for a little sacrifice of performance. 🙂
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Lets imagine for a minute that both cpus are equally priced. What would you do? $40 is not really that much.
 
Northwood. Your fan speed can be left at lowest setting on Zalman. Not so with presscot.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Northwood. Your fan speed can be left at lowest setting on Zalman. Not so with presscot.
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I didn't really pay attention to the quiet thing, so my bad.

I'll say it again, this silient fad is gatting increasingly expensive. The poor bastage is going to spend $40 on top of an aftermarket cooler to get quieter=Fvckin' sad in my mind :disgust:
 
I'm water cooled, not for performance but no noise.

Yes it's expensive but what's silence worth?

It's cool as sh1t having a system, with the traditionally loudest overclocked parts, you can't hear sitting right next to you.

Same goes for a nice monitor, case, or other sensory elements. Can't put a price/performance value on it.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
I'm water cooled, not for performance but no noise.

Yes it's expensive but what's silence worth?

It's cool as sh1t having a system, with the traditionally loudest overclocked parts, you can't hear sitting right next to you.

Same goes for a nice monitor, case, or other sensory elements. Can't put a price/performance value on it.
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Noise is a top priority for me. If $40 is gonna make a difference, the so be it. I don't mind.
I've already bought the Zalman (wich I was told is the coolest and quietest cooler out there) an Antec 3700AMB case a two Panaflos 120L1A fans. Also, a couple of Antec NoiseKillers (those silicon thingies you put around the fans to avoid vibration noise), one for each fan and one for the PSU.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
panaflo are LOUD!!! Stay away. they make a distitive droneing sound which is amplified inside case.


You want 120mm Nexus.

No the quietest cooler is 120mm Thermaltake with 120mm Nexus. But you're definity in the top 5 with zalman.
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Ooops. Little late, they've already been shipped. Well, I guess I can always use the Panaflos in my brother's rig and get Nexus's for mine. Thanks for the advice.

What about the Vantec Stealth fans?
 
I've spent literally $1000 in mistakes in my quest for quietness and turst me panaflo and vantec are way too loud.

What's your PSU? and Video card?

Those are the most difficult. I had to get the diegrinder out and custom make my own PSU. Video, unless waterblocked, all have insanely loud 60 or 70mm fans....
 
I don't play games, so I use a Matrox G450 AGP card, wich does not require active cooling.
As for the PSU, I'll be using the stock Antec SmartPower 350 for now. I can't afford a separate psu at this point.

I'll guess I'll have to try and see. You can't really say something is loud until you hear it. And quite frankly, I'm not able to really interpret dB ratings. Low pitched sound are more confortable tha high ones, but unless you try, you can never know.
 
That's very true we all hear different and low pictched noises arn't near as bothersome.


For PSU some good ones are, Zalman 400, seasonic super silencer 400, silverstones 120's, the 120mm and 14CM superflowers and of course Nexus. All cost over $70🙁 But you really can't hear them inside case. Problem for me is none have power I needed (low 12V rails) so I had to mod enermax 651 to be the same as them. Low rpm 120mm fanned which required cutting and sheet metal work.

I guess if I had to build an air system it would look pretty close to what you got albeit those changes already mentioned and a A64 just cause they run cooler. The 3000 for example only puts out 40W at full load, meaning you can run CPU fan at much lower RPM given the same heat sink. P4's OTOH use twice that amount.

-Antec 3700AMB
-Thermaltake XP120
-2 x nexus 120's one for back of case and one for CPU
-Nexus 400 Watt Quiet Power Supply
-Some passivly cooled video card
-2 smartdrives for hard disks
-A networked CD rom in my sons room😉


 
This will be the first time trying to build a quiet system. Thank you for all the info. I'll try to llok for some Nexus's online. As for hdd's noise, the case has rubber grommets in the drive cage, wich supposedly absorve vibration and make the drives quieter.
 
I am seeing the price difference as $20 (both OEM). The S478 E0 stepping is available now OEM. Perhaps they shan't bother with boxed for such parts. Prescott Thermal Guideline is 7W higher and Thermal Spec 1C lower. However, perhaps that could be reversed when comparing the best and worst samples (default voltage from the possible range). I understand that at 3GHz the Northwood may perform a bit better and the Prescott will only pull away when both clocked around 3.6. So the Northwood would seem the better choice where low noise was crucial. I am trying to decide the same myself, but do intend to o'c and the Prescott seems a more dependable o'cer and less likely to fail when so pushed and also reportedly better at HT. There has been specualtion that the E0 Prescott actually sports a single Nocona core. Anyhoo, keep those opines a comin'.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
I've spent literally $1000 in mistakes in my quest for quietness and turst me panaflo and vantec are way too loud.

What's your PSU? and Video card?

Those are the most difficult. I had to get the diegrinder out and custom make my own PSU. Video, unless waterblocked, all have insanely loud 60 or 70mm fans....
Click to expand...

Ditto to finding the Vantec's loud.

I had a Chenmeng case which I put 4 Vantec stealths into and it was pretty loud. Not a squealing or annoying sound, but the distinct sound of lots of air whooshing about the case was very audible. The stealths cooled great though, case and CPU temperatures were frigid 🙂 .

There's only one way I've seen to get truly quiet fans, and that's low RPM's, specifically >2500db.

Good choice on CPU HSF by the way. I have the all-copper version and I love it.

The Zalman HSF is great because even on "high" (which I would run it at all the time), it is all but inaudible. The same for the ATI/NV Silencers: they make such little noise that they're also essentially inaudible.

As for the CPU- I'd go for the Northwood.
 
Originally posted by: Artanis
Originally posted by: Zebo
panaflo are LOUD!!! Stay away. they make a distitive droneing sound which is amplified inside case.


You want 120mm Nexus.

No the quietest cooler is 120mm Thermaltake with 120mm Nexus. But you're definity in the top 5 with zalman.

Edit excellent case.


Don;t forget harddrive noise

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-...riveenclosure2002.html
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Are you serious? Panaflo hydrobearings loud ? How's that?
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the 120's not like the 80's I think that's where your comming from. The 80mm L1A's = most excellent I have a box of 25 around here I've been meaning to sell. Bu the 120's have entirely different charachterists, Course I'm anal. If I can hear it, from three feet, at 5 or 7V, its loud IMO and does'nt make it into my system.
 
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