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Which Northwood would be best for me?

J

jdurg

Senior member
Okay. I have an MSI 845 Ultra-ARU motherboard and I plan on getting a Northwood CPU. I would like to OC the CPU and get to a stable 133 MHz front side bus. At 133 the 1/4 divider kicks in and keeps the rest of my components in spec. I would like to get the 2.2 GHz chip, but at 133 MHz fsb it would be running at about 2.9 GHz. If I get the 2.0A chip, I can get to around 2.6 GHz with a 133 fsb. I have three case fans (front intake, rear exhaust, and side intake over the cpu), and a Thermaltake P4 Volcano 478 heatsink/fan with AS3 as the thermal compound. I also have two 256 MB Micron PC2400 DDR SDRAM. Would I be better off getting a 2.2, or 2.0 GHz Northwood CPU? Thanks.
 
Depends... Are you planning for a minor OC? i.e. 133fsb and that's it? or planning for mega OC'ing i.e. 150- 180+fsb. And how much of Vcore you're going to bump up.. Woodie 1.6A is easier to handle high FSB with less effort of Vcore bumping. The higher the mhz-rated P4 the harder it'll likely to OC in terms of FSB. 2.2Ghz would be definitely harder to maintain 133fsb+ and may need a lot more Vcore increase with very good cooling. The disadvantage is that 2.2Ghz with less OC of FSB will perform like $hit. The bottom line is that if you just want upto 133mhz FSB, then 2.2Ghz might be an idea. If you want to enjoy the very high FSB OC with ease, 1.6A(perferable) or 1.8A would be better for you.

If I were in your situation, I would put some top-5 best HSF with crazy amount of Vcore i.e. 1.85- 2.0Vcore(don't worry they don't get cooked that easily), get a 1.6A and OC the hell out of it. As a result, the FSB King performance. Breaking 3DMark 2001@ 11,000+/- would be easyyyyy on a GF3 OC to max. But... if you are not a mad FSB OC'er, then 2.0 or 2.2Ghz might suit you. Hope this helps..
 
I would say get the 1.6A. The other two you listed are ridiculously expensive. I don't really understand why anyone would spend that much money on a processor. You really don't *need* a 3 ghz processor. You could just buy a 1.6A now and then in 6 months or so buy a newer faster one for the same price as buying a 2.2a now. But that's just my opinion.
Scoob
 
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