Is it true that P4 775 Prescott CPU's run so hot they require an intake fan near the CPU to stay cool?!! (BTX-standard)

[Dance123]

Hi,

At my local store they have now 3 types of Pentium 4 CPU's: Northwood (s478), Prescott and now they also have a new range called "Pentium 4 s775", with names like Intel P4 530 CPU, etc..

I am considering buying a 3Ghz/3.2Ghz Pentium 4 and I was wondering which of the above is my best choice cause it's all very confusing to me! If I am correct Northwood is preferred over Prescott, cause Prescott gets too hot, so what should I choose: Northwood or "s775" (530, etc..)? What exactly are those "s775" CPU's? Are they better or worse then Northwood? What's the difference?!!

What's my best choice and please also explain why?! Thanks in advance for all good feedback!!

 

[Wahsapa]

i dont think they make a northwood socket 775. im pretty sure only prescotts are on the 775 socket.

theres socket 478(the original pentium 4 platform)

and then theres the new socket 775(the new pentium 4 platform)

if you wanna spend an arm and a leg for no preformance increase get 775. socket 478 is fine for right now. if you want to "future proof" a system get 775, but right not its not suggested.

 

[Dance123]

I am still confused!! Is the "Intel P4 530 CPU - 3.0 Ghz - s775" nothing more then a Prescott?!

At a local store if you want a 3.0Ghz P4 you have 3 choices:

- Intel PIV - 3.0 Ghz - s478 - 800FSB - Box (this is Northwood)
- Intel PIV - 3.0 Ghz - s478 - 800 - Prescott - Box
- Intel P4 530 CPU - 3.0 Ghz - s775 - FSB800 - Boxed

Please check out this link here: http://www.vdhsoft.be/eu/0014.HTM so you get the complete overview! You need to scroll down to see all there P4's! What's the difference between all those P4's?! What's my best choice?! If the Intel P4 530 CPU is also a Prescott, does this mean it also gets hotter then the Northwood? What else is different cause I am confused by all those models?!

 

[Shimmishim]

okay...

prescott comes in two flavors at the moment at least for desktops...

both have 1 meg of L2 but come in two different sockets... 478, the old one and 775, the new one

they started naming their processors with the new PR systetm starting with the skt 775....

northwood = 512 kb L2 --> available only in socket 478
prescott = 1024 kb L2 --> available in both 478 and 775

 

[Adn4n]

I'm going to do you the biggest favor ever by telling you this: Get an Athlon 64, they blow your Pentium 4 into obscenety.

 

[LTC8K6]

All the s775's are Prescotts. They are a new stepping though, I believe. Not enough of them out there to say much about them. They should be similar to S478 prescott in perf.

The XEONS are server CPU's of course.

You have S478 P4's, which could be Willamette, Northwood, or Prescott.

Willamettes are the old 256K cache chips, which also came in a different, earlier socket 423.

Northwoods have 512k cache and 400 "A", 533 "B", and no HT save for one, the 3.06Ghz 533 fsb, 512K cache, P4"B". There are also newer 800 fsb "C" Northwoods with 512k cache and all of these have HT.

Prescotts have 1Mb cache, 800 fsb, and HT save 2, the 2.4A and 2.8A Prescotts with 1mb cache, 533 fsb, and no HT. Prescotts are also called P4 "E" models, except for the 2 "A" models mentioned.

You got all that? I am sure I left out a few things.

You can think of the new Celeron "d" chips as the same as the old willamette p4's with a 533 fsb instead of 400.

 

[Dance123]

Thanks for the info, but I still don't know which one is my best choice: Northwood or 755 Prescott?!

Do those 755 Prescott P4's, just like the original Prescotts, also have this trouble of getting hotter then the Northwood? Also, does the Prescott perform better then a similar Ghz Northwood, cause I believe in most reviews they noticed hardly any improvement or am I wrong about that?..

On the other hand, is the larger 1MB cache that the Prescotts have a big advantage over the Northwood (only 512kb)?!

Anything else I should know?!..

 

[Sonic587]

Are you building a new PC? Or is this for a current computer?

If this is a current comp, most likely you have a skt478 motherboard. I would choose the northwood if this is the case.

 

[Corporate Thug]

will we ever see a p4 thread without someone sayiing something stupid like "the A64 blows the P4 away" ????

 

[Wahsapa]

what motherboard do you have?

if you have had your motherboard for longer then 3 months then that means you have a socket 478 motherboard.

just get a socket 478 northwood. your best choice all depends on what you are going to be using your computer.

report back with what kind of computer you have(motherboard, vid card) and what you want to use it for, and suggestions will come in a little more coherently

 

[caz67]

My P4 EE rocks..LOL

 

[Stormgiant]

Originally posted by: shady06
will we ever see a p4 thread without someone sayiing something stupid like "the A64 blows the P4 away" ????

Ditto... It's getting sick actually...

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, if you already have a system and you are upgrading the CPU, then you want an S478 Northwood or an S478 Prescott. The only reason I can think of to take a Northwood over a Prescott is if it's cheaper or if the mobo won't support the Prescott. They perform pretty much the same, with the edge going to the Prescott in media encoding. Prescott is wamer than Northwood, but not enough to worry about. Prescott is also a newer core design that features SSE3 instructions, which may or may not come in handy down the road.

The above is also true if you are building a new S478 system, but that socket may not be supported for much longer even though Intel has hinted that they will still produce S478 chips for a while longer.

If you are building new and want the rig to last a while, then you want an S775 chip, all of which are Prescotts, so you have no choice there. The S775 chips are the newest of the bunch and use a totally different system for attaching the chip to the mobo call LGA775. Basically the pins are in the socket, rather than on the chip.

Intel is also transitioning to a numbering system. Soon all of their chips will just have numbers like 325, 530, etc.

 

[Dance123]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I intend to buy a complete new system, so does that mean if I go Intel that the s775 Prescott (530, etc..) is a better choice then Northwood, alltough it doesn't seem to be a better performer (doesn't its larger 1 MB L2 cache give any gain over Northwood?) and don't all Prescotts become much hotter then Northwood.

My big problem with heat is that I intend to build a silent PC for music recording, so I don't intend to use an intake fan (not even a silent one, they always make noise), only an outtake fan, so is it then still a good idea to get a P4 530 or higher which has this reputation of getting hot?!

Isn't it so that Intel has introduced a "BTX-standard" or something for cases and mobos, which strongly recommends that you need to use an intake fan close to the CPU to cool it, etc.. in other words more fans giving more noise etc.. by the way, how can there even be an intake fan close to the CPU?! In my case you can only install an intake fan in the front, that's not nearby the CPU so what are they talking about?!..

I really have my doubts about a CPU that runs so hot that they recommend that you somehow need to put a intake fan in front of it.. or am I seeing it wrong and isn't such a fan really needed?? Anybody knows more about this and how important this BTX-standard for s775 Prescott P4s really is??!

I really hope somebody can clarify this?!! Thanks in advance for all usefull info!!

 

[Markfw]

OK, I am going to preface this reply with the understanding that it has to do with your heat concerns.....

The Athlon64 does run much cooler than the Precotts, and even the Northwoods. Have you even considered this CPU based on your heat concerns, and the fact that for what you are using it for the Athlon64 should work just a s well at the P4 ?

 

[Dance123]

Don't worry, am I also considering the Ahtlon64 but I will start another thread about this.

In this thread I mainly want to know how the new P4 775 Prescott CPU's compare to Northwood, both regarding performance (strange nobody mentions the 1MB L2 cache or is it irrelevant) and heat since I read in an article about this BTX-standard for P4 755 Prescott CPU's that would require an intake fan near the CPU to keep it cool enough. Is this really true??!

 

[Dance123]

I just read some more about P4 775. Is true that this doensn't work with normal graphic cards like the popular Radeon 9600/9800 range of cards etc.. and that you need a PCI Express graphics card instead and that it also only works with DDR2 DIMMs, which is hardly available and expensive. If that's the case, I don't see what's so interesting about 775?! Am I missing something? Anybody can please explain??

 

[Sonic587]

Originally posted by: Dance123
I just read some more about P4 775. Is true that this doensn't work with normal graphic cards like the popular Radeon 9600/9800 range of cards etc.. and that you need a PCI Express graphics card instead and that it also only works with DDR2 DIMMs, which is hardly available and expensive. If that's the case, I don't see what's so interesting about 775?! Am I missing something? Anybody can please explain??

Don't even consider skt775 right now. You've laid out most of the reasons not to choose it. I.E. Too expensive and not compatible. It also doesn't offer any speed benefits over skt478. It's not even future proof since Intel will be releasing 1066FSB P4s soon.

 

[Dance123]

Anybody can confirm that 775 Prescotts only work with DDR2 and PCI-Express graphic cards or are there 775 Prescotts that work with standard DDR400 and standard Radeon cards, etc..?! Anybody can tell more about this cause I don't understand why Intel releases something that won't work with anything else?.. The problem is that at my local store they don't sell Northwood anymore and seem to have replaced everything with those 775 Prescotts.. has Intel perhaps stopped producing Northwoods??

Also, what exactly is this "BTX-standard" that the 775 apparently needs? Do you need a special case for that, do you have to install an intake fan nearby the CPU or does a BTX motherboard come with such an intake fan? Anybody can tell more about this please?! Thanks!!

 

[Wahsapa]

oh jeez, you need to do a LOT of reading.

you see, theres cpu's and then theres the chipsets that they run on. socket 775 is for the cpu, and the chipsets that run them(so far) are intel's 915 and 925. you see the 915 chipset supports both ddr1 and ddr2, the 925 chipset only supports ddr2.

the 775 doesnt need btx. btx is referring to the layout of the motherboard, dont worry about it, right now everything is still atx.

just keep reading, all your question will be answered.

 

[PsharkJF]

Northwoods have 512k cache and 400 "A", 533 "B", or 800 "C" fsb, and no HT save for one, the 3.06Gh,z 533 fsb, 512K cache, P4"B".

Prescotts have 1Mb cache, 800 fsb, and HT save 2, the 2.4A and 2.8A Prescotts with 1mb cache, 533 fsb, and no HT. Prescotts are also called P4 "E" models, except for the 2 "A" models mentioned.

erm, 3.06/533/HT, and all 800 MHz Northwoods had HT, as far as I can remember.

 

[Dance123]

Originally posted by: Wahsapa
oh jeez, you need to do a LOT of reading.

you see, theres cpu's and then theres the chipsets that they run on. socket 775 is for the cpu, and the chipsets that run them(so far) are intel's 915 and 925. you see the 915 chipset supports both ddr1 and ddr2, the 925 chipset only supports ddr2.

the 775 doesnt need btx. btx is referring to the layout of the motherboard, dont worry about it, right now everything is still atx.

just keep reading, all your question will be answered.

Thanks for the info!

The thing is I read in an article that in order to deal with the heat of the Prescott CPU, the BTX-standard was being introduced for both motherboards and cases, and one of the things mentioned was that an intake fan nearby the CPU was needed, so therefore my question is if those Prescott 775 P4's need this intake fan nearby the CPU in order to stay cool or isn't that necessary?!! Anybody knows more about this?!

Also, is it so that with 775 your CD/DVD-ROM drive needs to be SATA (why?)?

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

BTX is something Intel has been trying to push for a long time (probably because they knew that future processors would be getting quite warm).

BTX specifies a new layout for Motherboards and Cases in order to better manage the airflow. It's more of a preventative measure than an intent to solve an existing problem.

All existing 775 MoBo's are ATX and therefore don't require any new cases. Some 775 mobo's can use either existing DDR RAM, or the newer DDR-2 (but not at the same time). ALL existing 775 mobos require a PCIe (PCI express) graphics card, although some boards have a hacked in AGP slot (but it runs off the normal PCI bus and is therefore very slow, at least from the previews I have read).

775 boards offer essentially no performance advantage right now, but they do offer upgrade potentential for those who hope to keep the MoBo for a long period and just upgrade the processor. The only difficultly is guessing which technologies will be widely adopted and when. For many, buying a MoBo with the intention of keeping it for several years just doesn't make sense.

If you are making a silnet PC (EDIT: or even a silent one), then you may want to look at the 478 socket with a northwood processor since they run cooler than the prescots. You could probably get any of the CPU's to work well in that environment though, with the appropriate CPU cooler.

-D'oh!

 

[Nebor]

I read in some magazine or internet article that one company, I want to say Soltek, makes an 875 board that takes a 775 prescott chip.

 

[LTC8K6]

Prescott is not that much hotter than Northwood. There is no need to make radical changes to cool a Prescott. A decent HSF is all you need. There is no need to make a big fuss about cooling a Prescott.

Remember that BTX will help cooling overall, including those ever warmer video cards.