Should I bother upgrading a P4 Socket 478?

[rubix]

I have an Intel P4 2.4GHz CPU w/ HT and was thinking maybe I should upgrade it to 3GHz? Is it worth paying ~$80 for it and will it improve games like Half-Life 2 and BioShock any?

 

[Cookie Monster]

Don't. Save up and buying a new PC will be a better idea.

Even a E2160 (dirt cheap) will be more than a match for the 3GHz P4 and thats saying something.

Unless you aren't going to upgrade in a very long time then maybe. What your system specs?

 

[rubix]

i have an abit ic7-g motherboard, an ati x1950 agp videocard, and i just ordered 4*1gb of pc3200 ram to replace my 2*512mb modules (new ones haven't arrived yet).

i usually only build a new system when my motherboard dies, and this one is still going. i will probably have this one for 2 more years or even more! as long as i keep using xp i think this thing can last for a long time.

for gaming my only goal is to improve my half-life 2 fps at 1920x1080 res. i get maybe 20 to 30fps depending on the area with everything maxed except anti-aliasing which is at 2x. other than that i play mainly older stuff.

 

[whosjohnny]

I know what people usually says, don't... save your money. While they may be right, I got one of the best socket-478 system out there, I can play Supreme Commander just fine... no jitter... medium setting... large maps, no problem.

Industry leading Asus P4P800 SE mother of all motherboards for overclocking & tweaking.
2GB DDR 400 OC 415 stable at 2-3-3-6 timing
Had 4GB RAM but dumped it due to 32-bit limitations, upgrade to 8GB DDR 1600mhz later with Dual Quad Extreme. This is about efficiency and extreme stable overclock, 2GB super fast.
Intel P4 Extreme Gallatin-core Xeon MP 3.57Ghz Hyper-threaded stable.
Zalman 9500 Industry best air-cool Heatsink
Two Ultra High 3,800rpm blower with sealed tight Acrylic Case, w/ Tornado tunneling cooling technology.
BFG 7800 OC AGP 8x 256MB DDR graphics @ 460mhz overclocked & 1350mhz DDR3 overclocked, stable.

Idle temp 27C, max temp 41C.
Hyper-threaded is hardware based dual instruction per clock execution architecture, under Windows XP Pro, shows up as 2 logical CPUs, extremely efficient CPU w/ 2.5MB L2 & L3 cache. 20 stage pipeline.

Of course, Core 2 Duo now with 3.0Ghz+ are starting to kick my arse but hey, I got the best Socket-478 system out there and it HANGS with the latest games without a hiccup.... how many Socket-478 system can say that?! =)

 

[MarcVenice]

Dude, as far as I know, that p4 get's OWNED by 2ghz core 2 duo's. Hyperthreading is a bunch of marketing BS. The L3 cache in fact makes your CPU slower in games because of it's low latency, it's fairly fast in encoding though. Not saying your PC sucks, but it is showing it's age. Saying something is industry's best or industry leading doesn't make it so

But as for the OP, a 3ghz is the fastest you can upgrade to? Can you overclock it ? It should be able to get by in Half Lif 2, the resolution is quite demanding though, if your 1950 is a pro, with 256mb ram then that is why you might be struggling in half life 2, at that resolution.

 

[hans007]

no completely not worth it. if you are near a frys store, you can probably almost buy a dual core board and chip ... with ram as cheap as it is now, you could likely get at least an e2140 , board (or something like an amd board and x2 3600) and 1gb stick of ram at frys for maybe $100-110 and it would be way way faster.

 

[Denithor]

Well, if you can return the new DDR without losing your shirt, you can probably build a new system for that cost plus what you are considering spending on a 3GHz P4 cpu.

You probably spent ~$200 on the 4GB of DDR.

Buy the e4400 for $135 which will walk all over the P4-3GHz in any game you care to throw its way.

Then buy the ASRock 4CoreDual-Sata2 motherboard for $66 (this board has both AGP and PCI-E slots so you can use your x1950pro for now and upgrade later).

Pick up 2GB of the cheap DDR2 memory found over in the hot deals forum for about $20-30 (after MIR) depending on their sale price. If you don't like rebates (and these ones from HP are good as gold as long as you mail it by the required date) you can get this Corsair 2GB set for $55 with no rebates.

Finally, pick up this Cooler Master 500W power supply for $25 (after MIR).

Throw it all in your old case and you have a kick ass C2D box for a grand total of about $250.

Two things to note: this motherboard will support up to the current q6600 quad-core cpu but will not support the new Penryn processors scheduled for release shortly (not really an issue, the e4400 is so much more powerful than your current 2.4 that you probably won't need another cpu upgrade for several years). Second, if you are running Windows XP you won't get the full benefit of 4GB of RAM. The most XP (or Vista 32-bit for that matter) can use is 3.2GB so 2GB is pretty much the standard amount for an XP system (which is why I recommended 2GB above).

Good luck with your build!

 

[MarcVenice]

Drop the cooler-master for a 430w antec earthwatts, more amps on the 12v rail, will be needed for a 1950pro.

 

[rubix]

hmm now you guys are tempting me! i already have a good power supply since my old one died recently. it's an ernermax liberty 620w.

i guess if i get a new motherboard it has to support my 3 sata harddrives + my ide dvd-r drive.

about the 4gb ram, are you saying win xp can't use the 4gb or that anything at all running in xp can't use it either, like games even?

 

[MarcVenice]

it's not really XP related, you'd need a 64bits OS to be able to use 4gb to it's full potential. Thats because 32 bits OS's can see 4gb, but that's including videocard memory for example, and PCI cards also take away some of the ram the OS can see. So in the end you end up with 3-3.5gb that actually can be used. As for games, not many, if any games use more then 2gb of ram. Some applications, like video encoding and photoshop CAN use 4gb of ram. Oh, and if you want to use 4gb, then Vista 64x is the way to go ...

 

[heyheybooboo]

XP by default claims a big chunk of your 4gb system memory. Google **xp 4gb switch** for instructions how to set ""....fast detect/3gb...."" switch in your boot.ini file. That should allow more memory for your apps & games. Also consider setting an extra page file off the OS drive for a little bump in performance

You have a very OC friendly set up which may not be top of the line by today's standards but able to clock past 3GHz on stock air . . .

 

[Denithor]

You already have a great power supply then, all the better. Return your 4GB DDR (even if you have to take a restocking fee, it's probably worth it for the performance improvement you will see), buy the cpu, mobo, 2GB DDR2 and call it a day.

This will be a much faster system than you've got and the e4400 will push that x1950pro much better than your old P4. Your fps should increase nicely.

Edit:

To show you the performance difference, take a look at the third graph on this page, featuring a range of processors benchmarked in HL2:Ep1. The results are downright crazy for the C2D processors versus the old P4 architecture. Note specifically the e6300 (2MB cache @ 1.86GHz) absolutely slaughtering the Pentium XE 965 (P4 extreme edition dual core, 4MB cache @ 3.73GHz) and then realize that the e4400 (2MB @ 2.0GHz) is faster than the e6300.

 

[rubix]

thanks for all the advice everyone. the more i think about it the better it all sounds. i can use one of my older ide drives as the boot drive on ide0 and then use the 2 sata drives for storage. so i will probably order the ram/cpu/motherboard later today!

 

[imported_stickboy]

i am extremely happy with my Asrock 4coredual upgrade. I upgraded from a P4 3.2 Socket 478 rig that is absolutely crushed by the 4coredual + e4400. And the e4400/4500 can easily be overclocked to take advantage of a 1066+ FSB. Its definitely the best deal for the money for people who can't just go out and spend hundreds of dollars on top of the line components.

 

[nyker96]

I don't think it will be worth your time to do this.

 

[JackMDS]

For about the price of P-4 3.0GHz + 4G of PC-3200.

You can buy E-2160 (or E2180) that can Run in circle around the P-4, and double circles when OC.

Combine GigaFast mATX that goes for $57, and HP DDR2 on sale for $20 per 1Gb piece.

About the same money almost 3 times the power.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: rubix
thanks for all the advice everyone. the more i think about it the better it all sounds. i can use one of my older ide drives as the boot drive on ide0 and then use the 2 sata drives for storage. so i will probably order the ram/cpu/motherboard later today!

if you get a boar like an intel g31 chipset which still has a real IDE port off ich7 (and is cheap) you could easily do that.

 

[Tremmor8722]

Hardware-ForumsI have just bought a new q6600 for a pc i am building, and noticed that it didnt come with cooling paste like my last one did. Is this normal nowadays-is paste no longer used? or do I need to buy some?

Thanks
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[imported_stickboy]

Usually the intel stock HSFs come applied with a thermal pad, but my only experience is with the e4300/e4400 series.