Why are PIIIs so expensive compared to P4s

DAICA

Senior member
Nov 8, 2000
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I was looking to upgrade my system from a celeron 600@900 to a PIII 1Ghz running on an asus cusl2c, but
as i was browsing the internet for prices i saw that the PIII 1Ghz were selling for as much as P4 1.7Ghz->newegg.com,
and to top it off it was also retail. can someone explain to me wth is going on?
 

PliotronX

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 1999
8,883
107
106
There's a hidden cost there in the RDRAM, and the 1.7GHz P4 is by no means 700MHz faster than the P3 in performance, only frequency. I think the 1.7GHz would overclock nicely to 2GHz though, and would probably clobber the P3.

edit- don't mind my comment of the P3 being faster, it's actually not. See my post below.
 

TunaBoo

Diamond Member
May 6, 2001
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p3s have always cost a lot. With p4 they want to be a little cheaper so they are CLOSER to AMD.
 

DAICA

Senior member
Nov 8, 2000
221
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Damn you guys are fast, is it even worth it to upgrade my celeron to the PIII 1ghz?
The reason i want to upgrade so bad is because i cant seem to hit that 1ghz barrier with the celeron,
the highest it will go is 945Mhz. any higher speeds with the PIII is gravy.

thanks
 

Rand

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
11,071
1
81


<< Damn you guys are fast, is it even worth it to upgrade my celeron to the PIII 1ghz?
>>



Yes!
The PIII is much faster then the Celeron.

Intel wants you to buy the P4, their phasing out the PIII line, hence it only makes sense for them to price to PIII prohibitively high in order to force you to go with the P4.




<< the 1.7GHz P4 is by no means 700MHz faster than the P3 in performance, only frequency >>


Clock for clock, yes the P4 is slower then a PIII. But I sincerely doubt you will find many benchmarks wherein a P4 @ 1.7GHz will lose to the 700MHz PIII.
 

damocles

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,105
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In my opinion a 1GHz P3 isn't worth the cost anymore. They are awesome processors and if you can get one second hand it would be worth considering. Otherwise you would probably be able to get a SIS 735 motherboard and AMD processor for about the same price (or less) as just the 1 GHz P3 processor.

Another option would be a P4 on a new Via P4X266 motherboard with DDR ram but that would be a bit costlier
 

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
29,767
33
81
Yep, for example:

In UT: 1024x768@32
PIII Tualtin 1.13Ghz: 48.39fps
Athlon 1.13Ghz: 46.88
P4 1.4Ghz: 44.01
 

PliotronX

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 1999
8,883
107
106


<< But I sincerely doubt you will find many benchmarks wherein a P4 @ 1.7GHz will lose to the 700MHz PIII. >>


Cripes, I apologize, I was thinking back about performance of P3s ~900MHz versus the (then) new P4 1.4 & 1.5GHz chips. The P4 1.7GHz is quite a bit faster than the P3 1GHz, as shown here. I keep forgetting the P4's performance ramps up as frequency increases :eek:
 

LordOfAll

Senior member
Nov 24, 1999
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From what I hear Intel has stopped or will soon stop all P3 production. Desktop versions anyway. They will still make mobile and server versions for a while, but even these will prob be gone by the end of the year.
 

DDad

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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It's a little thing called supply and demand......

Sales on the P4 have been slow from the get-go, hence the lower prices
 

whitelight

Diamond Member
Apr 9, 2001
3,505
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i was wondering the same thing. i have a p3-500 system that i want to upgrade. i want to get a p3-1ghz, but a p4 solution just seems more reasonable... maybe i'll just go p4 after the ddr boards for it come out.