• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Thinking about moving to a Pentium 4

Q

QuestionsandAnsweres

Golden Member
Currently I have a AMD Athlon Xp 1.4ghz (1600+). Thinking about moving totally to a pentium 4 1.6ghz and overclocking it to 2.1 (since i heard its sordof like the 600mhz pentium 3 which could overclock to 800mhz). And im looking for stability.


Now heres my problem. I dont know what to get 😛

Since im overclocking im guessing I have to go for a SIS 645 chipset? and that would save me some money since i already have ddr memory but i hear ddr is slower than rdram for the p4.

So could you guys give me recommendations on what to get?

ill need a new mothbboard (which). maybe new ram.
and will i need a new powersupply (mine isnt pentium 4 compliant i dont think) i currently have a Antec PP403X i think

Thanks
 
"Currently I have a AMD Athlon Xp 1.4ghz (1600+). Thinking about moving totally to a pentium 4 1.6ghz and overclocking it to 2.1 (since i heard its sordof like the 600mhz pentium 3 which could overclock to 800mhz). And im looking for stability.


Now heres my problem. I dont know what to get"


Here is what you get:





An AMD Athlon XP2100+

It's coming in a week or so and it's already available on preorder. MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper than getting a new CPU and MOBO for an Intel rig. Furthermore, since you are looking for stability, then this is the ideal upgrade because it would be running at stock speed.

Just my $.02
 
Then stop thinking and do it! 😀

No reason to waste your money on the 2100+ XP. It's still a Palomino. Wait for Thoroughbred cores (2200+ and above) before even considering AMD.

Figure $145 for a 1.6A Northwood Retail Box, $125 for a decent DDR board (either P4S333 or P4B266). You'll spend $270+ for a 2100+ XP alone at release, and with a little overclocking the Northwood will trump it. Plus you don't have to deal with the ridiculous cooling requirements...
 
Pabster

you da man!!!

seriously QuestionsandAnsweres check on the motherboard and see about the power requirements as most list whether or not they use a standard plug or not and there are adapters for the ones that don't😉

i have heard nothing but the best about p4b266 and p4s333 and use you ram for now if you need to you can always UPGRADE LOL

the processor 1.6a is the northwood flavored if it don't say it it ain't it😉

stability is in the mix😉

ddr is not necessarily slower but usually slower and the bandwith for rdram is wider but all told its not that big a hit especially the way ddr overclocks

hope this helps

edit>ps these are my opinions feel free to choose your own😉
 
Do bear in mind that not all 1.6A's are great overclockers.
My 1.6A will not even get close to the 2gig barrier no matter what i throw at it 🙁
If i was in your shoes i'd wait a while and get a Thoroughbred.
 
My suggestion is not to upgrade. A 1.6 and xp 1600 won't be much of a difference. It seems like a waste of money. My recent upgrade was going from a 550 k7 to a p41.6@2.1 which I consider a big performane jump. An xp1600 would easily last you through this year.
 
pick up the MSI 645 Ultra from newegg for $73....awesome board - supports 1mhz FSB increments and voltage tweaks...
 
I'd have to go along with the 'wait to upgrade' vote.

Unless of course you can list a valid reason for needing a faster CPU.

The following are not valid reasons:

I need more than 100 fps in Q3
I am not 1337 unless I am on the bleeding edge
My 3DMark Scores are too low

In all seriousness, a lot of users aren't using the full potential of their ghz+ processors... so why plonk down more money for marginal increases that you likely will never see?

I am running a 1.4 Tbird, no OCing, and I am going to stick with it for at least another 6 months.

As long as your system does what you need it to, why upgrade? And with the Hammer processors coming, I'd hold off until then to do an architecture upgrade. Firstly because if Hammer kicks major butt you'll want to go that way, and if it's NOT worth the price/performance delta, at least it should encourage a round of price slashing on the Intel if that's the way you want to go.

Of course... YMMV
 
Hey Q&A, two words for you:

You're nuts!

It's not enough of a performance increase to bother (in some applications, it's a DECREASE). Unless you like speed for speed's sake (and have the finances to support such an obsession), your XP 1600+ can run anything out there with aplomb. It's someone like me with a 800MHz Celeron that should be thinking about upgrading, but I'm staying put for now.
 
Well, I upgraded from a p3 1ghz. So i had to buy a new board (Asus P4B266-C $115), Processor (1.6a Retail $150), and the ram (Kingston Value $74). I'm running @ 2.1ghz completely stable, just ran prime95 all night. I can boot to 2.4 but not stable at default voltage. In my own opinion unless your really disappointed in your current rig, upgrade, if not, wait.
 
Here's a couple of suggestions.

If you are planning on overclocking, the i845D boards seem to FSB overclock a good deal higher than the Sis chipsets, possible due to the FC-PGA packaging of the i845D Northbridge. The Sis645 is a speedier chipset at default speeds since it has support for PC2700, but they generally seem to quit around 150ish FSB. The Sis645 and i845D are both great chipsets, and stability should not be an issue with either. I recently did something similar, and I originally bought a Gigabyte mobo with the Sis645 (GA-8SRX), and while the board was pretty decent, even after using ASII on the northbridge I could not get past around 145mhz FSB stable..with DDR I knew would do 160+. I had unrelated problems with the board, the sound chip was defective, so I RMA'ed and went with the stripped down version of the popular Asus P4B266, the P4B266-C.

The same chip on the Asus runs great @ 2.56ghz, 1.6v, and 160mhz FSB. This is with the retail HSF, a Panaflo 80mm in the PSU (Antec PP412X), and one Panaflo 80mm intake. Not only does it run great, but it's very quiet as well. The other nice thing about the Asus is that it has a regular four pin molex connection near the ATX connector so you can use a non-P4 compliant PSU. I believe Asus' Sis645 boards also have this feature. See below..

" ASUS EZ Plug?
The ASUS EZ Plug? power connector lets you use your existing power supply and eliminates the need to buy a special ATX 12V power supply necessary to support your P4 CPU."

With the money you save from not needing new RAM and a new PSU, you can spend a little more and get the more featured packed P4B266, with USB 2.0, onboard 6-channel Cmedia sound, and a third memory slot. The RDRAM will be a bit faster, but there is extra cost involved with a i850 board and some RDRAM. The Abit TH7II seems to be popular among o/c'ers if you go the i850/RDRAM approach.

Good luck..🙂

 
Q&A,
Don't listen to these guys telling you not to upgrade. If you're itching for the overclocking bliss of a 1.6A Northwood, I say go for it! I have a 1.33 TB rig in my bedroom, which will be moving to the living room, to be replaced by an oc'd 1.6A Northwood system in my bedroom (noise from the fans is not such a big deal in the living room as it is in the bedroom). I picked up the 1.6A from newegg for 138 + 6.00 shipping, and the Asus P4B266-C for 115 + 9.00 shipping from MWave, for a total of 268.00. I'm using some crucial pc2100 DDR I already have handy, so all in all, this is a pretty cost effective setup, for the performance (and the peace and quiet of an Intel system).
 
If you have the hots to overclock a Northwood go for it.

Do a search on "Northwood". The last time I checked there were a number of threads discussing Northwood overclocking how tos in the CPU\Overclocking forum that were providing alot of valuable information

 
If its for gaming I'd go for the videocard upgrade before the CPU. There is plenty of chance that XP1600+ will run 1.6GHz, which is like an XP1900+.
 


<< "Here is what you get:

An AMD Athlon XP2100+

It's coming in a week or so and it's already available on preorder. MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper than getting a new CPU and MOBO for an Intel rig. Furthermore, since you are looking for stability, then this is the ideal upgrade because it would be running at stock speed.

Just my $.02 >>



Well said!
 
QuestionsandAnsweres, what are you going to be using this system for? None of what anyone said really applies to you unless they know what you're going to be using this system for. If it's just web surfing, then there's obviously no reason to get a 1.6A @ 2.4-2.5GHz system unless you simply enjoy building systems or like to brag a lot. 🙂

So, what are you going to be doing with this system?

EDIT: Just to add in my two Northwood cents if you're going to upgrade no matter how powerful your current system is:

1. Intel Pentium 4 1.6GHz Northwood Processor (overclocked to 2.4-2.5GHz with retail HSF).
2. ASUS P4B266-C (i845 DDR chipset) or ASUS P4T-E (i850 RDRAM chipset) Motherboard.
 
Gaming. ive been doing lots of gaming lately 😛

I dont want to upgrade juts for speed. but for stability.


if i got a p4 1.6ghza and overclocked to 2.1ghz a would it be more stable than my athlon xp 1600+ and soyo dragon+ mobo and will it be faster?

im looking to get the i845d chipset since i already have ddr ram

 
Since you already have an 8500 level video card (and Ti4600), then your gaming isn't going to be that greatly influenced when you move to a 1.6A setup.

And if you're not having any stability problems with your system now, there's no reason to think it'll get any better if you go with a Northwood system later.
 
Why even upgrade? You've got a pretty good system right there. Spend that money on dinner for the wife/girlfriend or something.
 
qa

that's really the ONLY reason i could see that you'd wanna upgrade from the xp to the p4. noise.

My home system went from a Duron 700 to P4 1.6. ya. it's noticeable.

my Office system went from t-bird 1.33 to xp 1700+, no i can't tell the difference. i probably wasted my money on that one. but the reason i did it is better thermal performance of the 1700+ and the internal thermistor. now if i can only get that system a mb that supports the internal thermistor i will be exceedingly happy.
 
well my amd system is tad unstable. i mean atleast compared to my old pentium 3 which was overclocked. and I would get a performance gain with this upgrade and it would be quieter. but i dont know if i want to take a chance on the 1.6a not overclocking to 2.1ghz

Whats the chance of it overclocking to 2.1ghz?


 
I recently decided to upgrade as well, but from an Athlon 750. Your setup is plenty nice already, and I'm not sure you can get that much benefit from changing chips. I'll be buying early next month, and am hoping the Abit TH7-2 get its BIOS problems straightened out before then. If you do upgrade, go for the RDRAM boards since prices are freefalling. RDRAM is actually cheaper than DDR 2700; that is insane.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top