I'm in the market for a socket-478 cpu, and the three that I've been looking at pretty closely were these:
Celeron D 330 - 2.66Ghz, 533FSB, Prescott, 20x multiplier, No HT
Pentium 4 2.4A - 533FSB, Prescott, 18x multiplier, No HT
Pentium 4 2.4C - 800FSB, Northwood, 12x multiplier, HT
I think the decision is pretty much down to the two P4s (unless somebody can point me to some benchmarks showing how the C-D 330 compares to the lower clocked P4), and I'm trying to determine which would be the better overclocker, the Northwood with the 12x multiplier and higher starting FSB (and HT), or the Prescott with an 18x multiplier and starting at a slower FSB. It seems like the Prescott would be the cheaper investment because I would only have to buy standard pc3200 RAM instead of 3500 or higher.
The system is going to be exclusively for gaming (and maybe 3D modeling if I find that Maya runs better on a Windows or Linux box then it does on my Mac) because I have another computer for my other tasks, so I don't think HT would be much of a benefit because most games aren't dual-processor aware (HT might not be of that much use even if I find that Maya runs better, I'd just render it on both my Macintosh and this machine).
Or is there another alternative that I'm not looking at that would be better?
Celeron D 330 - 2.66Ghz, 533FSB, Prescott, 20x multiplier, No HT
Pentium 4 2.4A - 533FSB, Prescott, 18x multiplier, No HT
Pentium 4 2.4C - 800FSB, Northwood, 12x multiplier, HT
I think the decision is pretty much down to the two P4s (unless somebody can point me to some benchmarks showing how the C-D 330 compares to the lower clocked P4), and I'm trying to determine which would be the better overclocker, the Northwood with the 12x multiplier and higher starting FSB (and HT), or the Prescott with an 18x multiplier and starting at a slower FSB. It seems like the Prescott would be the cheaper investment because I would only have to buy standard pc3200 RAM instead of 3500 or higher.
The system is going to be exclusively for gaming (and maybe 3D modeling if I find that Maya runs better on a Windows or Linux box then it does on my Mac) because I have another computer for my other tasks, so I don't think HT would be much of a benefit because most games aren't dual-processor aware (HT might not be of that much use even if I find that Maya runs better, I'd just render it on both my Macintosh and this machine).
Or is there another alternative that I'm not looking at that would be better?
