To prescott or not to prescott?

[blazingoat]

Okay guys, I'm upgrading my system. I'm probably going to go with either a 3.0 or 3.2 P4. I can't decide ether to go with a northwood or prescott though. I'm going to have an abit IC7-MAX3 mobo and a gig of:

THIS IS THE RAM i'm getting

Corsair TWINX1024-4000PRO
2x512MB XMS PRO w/LEDs


So, what do you guys think? Northwood or Prescott. I want to use a Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu heatsink. Should I go with the C or the E? I want to overclock and I use my system for video editing and moderate gaming. Also, do you think this is the best ram for me to get? Or should I get the Low latency stuff? I'm going to get 1 gig to start off, and add another gig in a few months when i have more $$$.

Other components:

2x WD Raptor 36gb SATA drives in Raid 0
2x Seagate 200gb SATA drives in Raid 0 (for video storage).
AIW Radeon 9600xt
Thermaltake 450watt power supply


THANKS!

 

[Zebo]

C under all conditions but phase change.

 

[blazingoat]

yeah, i'm leaning toward the C (northwood). What do you think about the ram? is this stuff good? or should i get the 3200 low latency instead?

 

[Zebo]

I think LL is a waste. I can't find it but toms hardware tested it and it makes little difference and is easily made up by higher bandwidth with looser timmings.

My sugesstion is this for high bandwidth. Go the Circut City and they have the great ram labled as kingston value ram PC3200 for $68-$99 for 512 depending on the day..

Look through the boxes which are clear plastic until you find one with "Hynix BT-D43" chips on board, labeled as such... Just awesome and found on expensive PC4200 modules like Buffalo FireStix.

An even better plan, but more money, www.tblmemory.com has Buffalo 512MB PC3200 Micron C, same chips as OCZ EB series, for $85.95 a stick. This stuff will go both LL and/or high bandwidth.


Shhhh.

 

[Zebo]

Couple things about your build since you mention OCing.

Why not get the 2.8C, it's the same chip dispite what Intel says...save a buck or two and OC to 3.5.

Also the MAX is a waste IMO, Get the IS7 for half.


Now with all that savings, $150 on ram, $80 on board, $100 on processor for the exact same OC performance you can afford to get a serious video card instead of POS 9600...like the 6800GT

 

[Zap]

Zebo may be onto something with the RAM. The other thing is if you want "guaranteed" speeds, Kingston HyperX PC4000 512MB has been on sale (with rebate) for $100-120 every month or two, often at Bestbuy. I have the AlCu version of the heatsink and it didn't keep my Prescott 2.4A @3.3 cool enough at full fan speed (bypassing the FanMate and in a case with 120mm exhaust). Had a Northwood in there before that ran much, much cooler (both CPU fan and case fan running undervolted, stayed cool)

For motherboard, how about the AI7? It is like the IS7, but of a newer design. I have an IS7 and it has a few flaws, hopefully fixed in the AI7.

I've been reading that RAID doesn't give enough measurable performance gain in real life applications to be worth it. You can get one Raptor 74GB and wait for the 400GB Seagate drives to come out. That way less heat generated. Dunno, just a suggestion. Hmmm, maybe keep RAID for the video editing. Better yet, have two separate drives since when you edit, doesn't it sometimes read and write at the same time? If you used one drive for each, then things should move pretty smoothly. Just have them on different channels.

 

[Zebo]

Well Zap I'm cheap and overclock all. These vendors put a surcharge on stuff labled "xtreme" "hardcore" "XMS" etc etc when they sell the same stuff labeled average and unadvertised for half the price. Just have to look or it. That KHX PC4000 is a good deal using the hynix chips.

Anyway you make good points about raptor, not only will a 74 be much faster than a 36 (see storage reviews review).. I bet It's faster the a raid 36.

 

[Khyron320]

go athlon 64 =D

i just got one of these after building 3 p4c systems and im quite impressed

 

[LTC8K6]

Isn't video editing one of the areas where the Prescott is faster than the Northwood?

 

[jenko]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Isn't video editing one of the areas where the Prescott is faster than the Northwood?

Yes media encoding and video editing is where the prescott easily beats the northwood.
The review on this site shows that the 3.2e beats not only the 3.2 northwood but also the 3.2ee!!

the northwood runs about 5c cooler the pressy at full load and has a couple more fps in most games except doom3 all this info is taken of this site.

 

[moonboy403]

you have to decide if you're an overclocker or not
prescott can probably overclock further than northwood

 

[alexruiz]

Originally posted by: blazingoat
Okay guys, I'm upgrading my system. I'm probably going to go with either a 3.0 or 3.2 P4. I can't decide ether to go with a northwood or prescott though. I'm going to have an abit IC7-MAX3 mobo and a gig of:

THIS IS THE RAM i'm getting

Corsair TWINX1024-4000PRO
2x512MB XMS PRO w/LEDs


So, what do you guys think? Northwood or Prescott. I want to use a Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu heatsink. Should I go with the C or the E? I want to overclock and I use my system for video editing and moderate gaming. Also, do you think this is the best ram for me to get? Or should I get the Low latency stuff? I'm going to get 1 gig to start off, and add another gig in a few months when i have more $$$.

Other components:

2x WD Raptor 36gb SATA drives in Raid 0
2x Seagate 200gb SATA drives in Raid 0 (for video storage).
AIW Radeon 9600xt
Thermaltake 450watt power supply


THANKS!

I suggest Athlon 64 3400+.

I would like to hear what programs you will be using for video editing...... As you are aware, the programs that prefer AMD over intel for video edition are 2:1. If you have only seen XMPEG + DivX benchmarks and that made you think that the P4 is unstoppable, I suggest to dig the topic a little more


Alex

 

[Zebo]

alex is video pro...listen to him.

 

[alexruiz]

Originally posted by: Zebo
alex is video pro...listen to him.

:beer: No, not pro. Just an enthusiast that wants to uncover the truth!

 

[Blurry]

I'd say go for the prescott
I remember people said that once the prescott goes past 3.4GHz it starts outperforming its northwood counterpart.
You have a good heatsink, I'm sure that an extra 200-300Mhz overclock won't heat things up that much.

 

[blazingoat]

Well i already have my abit IC7-MAX3 board, and i'm not changing it, so I'm definatly going with a P4.

I run Adobe After Effects / Premiere Pro 1.5, Avid Xpress DV, Photoshop/Illustrator, Encore 1.5 and Pro Tools.

Any one else? Prescott or Northwood? I'm going to buy a chip this weekend and get my upgrade on! They're exactly the same price for a 3.2 ghz. Just gotta chooooose one! C or E?

 

[Adn4n]

Originally posted by: alexruiz

Originally posted by: blazingoat
Okay guys, I'm upgrading my system. I'm probably going to go with either a 3.0 or 3.2 P4. I can't decide ether to go with a northwood or prescott though. I'm going to have an abit IC7-MAX3 mobo and a gig of:

THIS IS THE RAM i'm getting

Corsair TWINX1024-4000PRO
2x512MB XMS PRO w/LEDs


So, what do you guys think? Northwood or Prescott. I want to use a Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu heatsink. Should I go with the C or the E? I want to overclock and I use my system for video editing and moderate gaming. Also, do you think this is the best ram for me to get? Or should I get the Low latency stuff? I'm going to get 1 gig to start off, and add another gig in a few months when i have more $$$.

Other components:

2x WD Raptor 36gb SATA drives in Raid 0
2x Seagate 200gb SATA drives in Raid 0 (for video storage).
AIW Radeon 9600xt
Thermaltake 450watt power supply


THANKS!

I suggest Athlon 64 3400+.

I would like to hear what programs you will be using for video editing...... As you are aware, the programs that prefer AMD over intel for video edition are 2:1. If you have only seen XMPEG + DivX benchmarks and that made you think that the P4 is unstoppable, I suggest to dig the topic a little more


Alex

I would personally go the AMD Athlon 64 route myself. I don't see, however, why you would spend roughly $100 more on a 3400+ when the 3200+ is almost as good. The performance to price ratio is worse on the 3400+, so go for the 3200+.

As to the ram; the Athlon 64 is not as easily overclocked as the prescott due to its top-locked multiplier(just 10), so getting a PC 4000 would be favorable, but it's hardly worth the money. I myself have gotten Ocz PC3500 2x512 for roughly $200. I can't tell you how well it OCs yet, since I'm still waiting for Asus to update the bios on my K8N E-Deluxe.

 

[MiniDoom]

Originally posted by: blazingoat
Any one else? Prescott or Northwood? I'm going to buy a chip this weekend and get my upgrade on! They're exactly the same price for a 3.2 ghz. Just gotta chooooose one! C or E?

I say p4e. With proper cooling the 3.2 should get up to 4.0 GHz.

 

[jpeyton]

I love my Prescott 2.4A. It does 3.24GHz at stock voltage, using a Zalman AlCu 3000 cooler, idles at 40C, load at 55C. Perfectly within spec for a quiet cooler.

BTW, ditch the Raptors and get a good SATA 7200RPM drive.