Need advice on which P4 to buy

[Anthony2816]

After several years of AMD systems, I'm going to try a Pentium 4. Can someone help me decide which one to get? I'm getting one of those heavily-rebated Soyo SY-P4i865PE Plus V1.0 motherboards from NewEgg, with PC3200 ram. I'd like to run the CPU at least at 3.0 ghz (preferably by upping the multiplier alone, as one review I read said they had trouble upping the freq of this board).

I'm considering the 2.4C Northwood (FSB 800), as from reports I've read it seems to overclock better than the Prescott, and runs cooler as well. Does this seem like the best solution, or is it worth paying more for the 2.8 (C or E?). Or is some other P4 (FSB 800) a better choice?

I'll probably be buying from NewEgg....

 

[Anthony2816]

Bump

 

[TStep]

The multipliers on P4s are locked, all the overclocking is done by upping the fsb. You need a good high fsb board to obtain any significant overclock and you also need to watch the DDR speed. For example I have tried many combinations on an Abit IC7G or AI7 w/ Musnkin BH5 PC3200, a few are from memory:

1) P4 2.4 w/ 12x multiplier at 270 for 3240, DDR 400 @ 5:4 ratio for 216 (2-2-2-?)
2) P4 2.8 w/ 14x multiplier at 240 for 3360. DDR 400 @ 1:1 ratio for 240 (2.5-?-?-?)
3) P4 3.0 w/ 15x multiplier at 233 for 3500, DDR 400 @ 1:1 ratio for 233 (2-?-?-?)

The trick is to get the DDR to match as closely as possible to the speed of the fsb either at 1:1 (preferably) or 5:4. So I suggest getting a cpu first, see what kind of overclock you can get, then get DDR to match the fsb. There are a couple of articles that show tight timed DDR at 5:4 performs more or less equal to loose timed DDR at 1:1. In all cases, aim to have the DDR running at least 200mhz tight timed.

 

[Duvie]

If you go with the 2.4c northwood then look around to see what retailer is selling M0 stepping chips as they are some od the best overclockers. Mine is not a M0 stepping and my 24c was able to attain 3.5ghz amd 3.4ghz at default vcore....

You will see fsbs in the 280 to 300fsb so get some good ddr and if you have to you can use 3:2 or 5:4 ratios to work with lower speed ddr if needed....

I run 3:2 to run with my pc3500ddr....if you hit 300fsb even with a 5:4 ratio you will need ddr capable of 480 so that would need pc4000 and that could be a pretty penny.

Don't be so pre-occupied with ddr speed as my testing showed it never meant as much as pure clock speed. so if you have to run 3:2 to be able to use existing pc3200...go with it...

 

[Anthony2816]

Great, thanks for the info. There's no way to unlock the multipliers like you can with the Athlons, huh? Seems like some hackers aren't trying hard enough!

(By the way, I ended up ordering a P4 2.8E chip instead of the 2.4C, as I'm worried that the budget motherboard may fail to do any significant FSB overclocking. Plus, NewEgg has the 2.8E on sale today....)

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Anthony2816
Great, thanks for the info. There's no way to unlock the multipliers like you can with the Athlons, huh? Seems like some hackers aren't trying hard enough!

(By the way, I ended up ordering a P4 2.8E chip instead of the 2.4C, as I'm worried that the budget motherboard may fail to do any significant FSB overclocking. Plus, NewEgg has the 2.8E on sale today....)

2.8E = Prescott = hot = evil.
P4 C's are Northwood based and overclock without running as hot.

 

[Anthony2816]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
2.8E = Prescott = hot = evil.
P4 C's are Northwood based and overclock without running as hot.

Yeah, I'd read about the heat difference. But I decided to go with a real-world experience in which I built a computer for a friend (who refuses to consider overclocking) based on the 2.8E. First we tried the stock Intel heatsink, with the stock Intel heatsink thermal pad, and got idle temps in the 55 range. Next we replaced the thermal pad with Arctic Silver, and got the idle down into the mid-40's. Then we switched to a Thermaltake Spark 7+, and got the idle temps down into the high 30's. So I ordered a Spark 7+ to go with my 2.8E....

 

[foxkm]

Stay away from the Soyo P4i865PE Dragon v1.0 board. It is a TOTAL POS. Plus the rebate thing is screwed up. I got one nad it won't support the Prescott CPU I got properly. XP SP2 hates this board and the board doesn't seem to support Hyperthreading properly.

 

[carlosd]

So you want to try out the lower performance side. Good luck.

 

[cirthix]

stick with amd, you wont regret it