Which low cost Intel processor should I buy?

chaosfire

Junior Member
Nov 9, 2004
9
0
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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?
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
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Your mostly gaming??? Why are you looking at Celeron/P4's?

Get a Athlon64 system, or save some bucks and get a Sempron 3100+.
 

chaosfire

Junior Member
Nov 9, 2004
9
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0
I already have a p4 board that was given to me, otherwise I would buy a A64 system (I am an AMD fanboy of sorts, but I can't pass up free gear)
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
126
2.4C - no contest. No real need for dual Processor awareness to get the benefits of HT. Multi-tasking is one of the areas where HT shines.
 

garkon8

Member
Oct 5, 2004
77
0
66
If you are planning on gaming, stay away from the Celeron.
I had a 2.4c Northwood and it overclocked without much effort to
3.0 on air cooling. Very good chip IMO.
I can't speak on the 2.4 Prescott, but I am thrilled with my 3.2E
reaching 3.8 on Air.
 

bim27142

Senior member
Oct 6, 2004
213
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buy my 2.4A for $50 and i'll then get myself a 2.4C!! :) anyhow, my point is, go for 2.4C, it has HT... 2.4A has SSE3 support... for me, i'd go for HT than SSE3...
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
13,199
1
81
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
2.4C - no contest. No real need for dual Processor awareness to get the benefits of HT. Multi-tasking is one of the areas where HT shines.