Is a 3.4 Prescott a good upgrade from a 2.8 Northwood

[moemac8]

I was thinking about upgradeing and waiting another year before I dive into dual cores. A 3.4 Prescott is the fastest chip my Abit IS-7e motherboard will take....is it worth it or should I just resist the urge to upgrade?

 

[3chordcharlie]

I wouldn't bother.

You can likely OC the northwood to over 3ghz if you are so inclined, and you won't get huge gains from the Prescott unless you plan to OC it as well.

Without knowing more about your system, there's a good chance a prescott will also entail adding more case cooling, and maybe even a better PSU (especially if you DO decide to OC). I would stick with what you have until there is a compelling reason to upgrade it. Your current chip should get you through another year until you go dual-core with little trouble.

 

[Duvie]

I agree OC that 2.8ghz northwood..many can get to 3.2ghz without needing more juice....the prescott has a longer pipeline thus lock for clock it is slower then its northwood brothers...This is more true at 2.8ghz range moving to less so at 3.5ghz range....That case a 3.2ghz woulb be unnoticebale diff...

 

[carlosd]

NO. It is absolutely not worth it.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

definately resist

 

[Acanthus]

I wouldnt. Unless you do serious professional video editing or rendering work. Then it will make a noticable difference.

 

[Shinare]

Not unless you also need a space heater. I would definatly look into an A64 winchester. My upgrade was a Northwood 2.4GHz but I had running at 2.8GHz stable and I upgraded to an A64 3000+ s939 winchester. Its totally amazing, and I got it runnin at 2.156GHz right now. (stock is 1.8GHz) but the diference is just astounding. I think for the money, it was the best upgrade I have ever done. (And I've been around since the 8088 days )

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Shinare
Not unless you also need a space heater. I would definatly look into an A64 winchester. My upgrade was a Northwood 2.4GHz but I had running at 2.8GHz stable and I upgraded to an A64 3000+ s939 winchester. Its totally amazing, and I got it runnin at 2.156GHz right now. (stock is 1.8GHz) but the diference is just astounding. I think for the money, it was the best upgrade I have ever done. (And I've been around since the 8088 days )

He obviously doesnt want to change motherboards if you read the original post.

 

[Shinare]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Shinare
Not unless you also need a space heater. I would definatly look into an A64 winchester. My upgrade was a Northwood 2.4GHz but I had running at 2.8GHz stable and I upgraded to an A64 3000+ s939 winchester. Its totally amazing, and I got it runnin at 2.156GHz right now. (stock is 1.8GHz) but the diference is just astounding. I think for the money, it was the best upgrade I have ever done. (And I've been around since the 8088 days )

He obviously doesnt want to change motherboards if you read the original post.

No need to get hostile. Just adding my experiance to the conversation.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

"should" be able to oc fsb to 240 on default voltages. at this oc, it should be faster than a stock 3.4 prescott.

you may have to up the voltages on vdimm and vcore if you want to go over 240.

 

[moemac8]

I thought about switching the motherboard with a 939 AMD and maybe getting a 3400. I definately want to keep my AGP card for a while and I have heard that there will be dual core AMDs that can use a 939 mb with a bios upgrade. But I have to say, my P4 may be slower, but I really like hyperthreading so I was hesitant to upgrade to the Athlon 64 3400

 

[RussianSensation]

You should overclock it. My 2.6 Northwood is at 3.2ghz. I think your 2.8 can reach 3.4. That way you get a slight boost in performance and keep the HT. The difference in gaming will be marginal if you play at high resolutions anyways. Certainly A64 is a good processor. But I am not sure if spending $100 on a mobo + $150 on a processor justifies the performance increase just yet when you can get 6800GT near $300 nowdays.

 

[Acanthus]

A 3400+ AMD is not a significant upgrade either.

 

[akugami]

Overclock it to 3.0-3.2ghz. Wait one year, get a dual core AMD64 CPU.

 

[stevty2889]

I'd overclock the 2.8 rather than get a 3.4ghz prescott. Doesn't happen in every case, but my 3.4ghz prescott would throttle at even stock speeds, using a thermalright XP-120...my 2.8ghz prescott ran fine at 3.5ghz, and didn't overheat like the 3.4ghz did. If think you should be able to get at least to 3.2ghz with that northwood, is it a 800mhz FSB chip with hyperthreading?

 

[Bateluer]

I did jump from a 2.4C to a 3.4E w/ an XP-120 because I didn't want to change mobos either. Aside from a few days without AC (in Phoenix AZ), my temps are fine, full load peak at around 54^C. When the AC was out, temps rose to a toasty 62^C on the CPU, and 58^C or so in the case. I shut the system down until the AC was working again. Should be noted that I have a s478 3.4E as well.


Performance wise, I notice a difference. My DivX/XviD encoding is significantly faster, and I can definitely feel improvements in all my games. The 3.4E chip really takes the chains off my 6800 GT.

In your case tho, if you can't OC the 2.8, I'd wait for the PD or Dual Core A64s.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: moemac8
I thought about switching the motherboard with a 939 AMD and maybe getting a 3400. I definately want to keep my AGP card for a while and I have heard that there will be dual core AMDs that can use a 939 mb with a bios upgrade. But I have to say, my P4 may be slower, but I really like hyperthreading so I was hesitant to upgrade to the Athlon 64 3400

If you really like HT, don't upgrade until you can get a dual-core CPU that meets your minimum speed requirements. Just keep in mind that the single-threaded performance you'll get from dual-core won't be that much higher until their clock speeds go up, but you'll get killer performance on multithreaded apps and when multitasking heavily.