Buy a Northwood or wait for Prescott??

[2800CC]

I'm just about to build a new PC (my first)

I wanna go for an intel and HAD planned to go for a P4 2.8 800FSB. Now do I go and get it and build away OR place an order for a prescott. I have tried to read as much as I can about new bigger L2 cache etc but what do you all think?

My plan in
Intel 2.8 (Northwood or Prescott)
Asus P4c800 875 (With the dodgy LAN chip)
1024MB Corsair TwinX 3200C2
128MB 5700 ultra platnium from Sparkle or Gainward.

I am looking for a good gaming PC but without going mental price wise.
Any comment on my surgested picks ?

ThanX.

[Darkmatter]

Im in much the same position over the CPU choice. Im swaying towards the Prescott at the moment, but im gonna wait and see what its like at release.

Motherboards a good one, i got the P4P800 cracking board, has its quirks. Cant go wrong with Asus

Memory thats good, bare in mind that if you intend to overclock you might well be better getting something a little faster.

Graphics its middle end, not bad it'll get the job done, again might be worth saving some extra beans and getting something with a little more oomph to do the 2.8 justice

[Byatt]

At risk of being flamed/ignored...have you considered an Athlon 64 based system? they really are *very* fast...

[unrealrocks]

At risk of being flamed/ignored...have you considered an Athlon 64 based system? they really are *very* fast...

Totally same, A64s are cheap (comparably) and VERY fast (I have a 3400XP and been testing it since November )

[bennydad]

Totally same, A64s are cheap (comparably) and VERY fast (I have a 3400XP and been testing it since November )

hey guess what - indications are that prescott is CHEAPER than northwood
see preorder at overclockers.co.uk

[Korky]

hes not at risk of being flamed, ppl dont work like that here, he obviously wants a p4.
Id say wait for the prescott to come out check the reviews then decide, i dont recommend splashing out at a point like this when a new core is coming out.

[chrisf6969]

Specs look good.

BUT I would get a 2.6C (you'll save a little $) then use that extra money on getting a 5900SE or 5900 non ultra.

Gaming will benifit a lot more from the 5900 than from 200Mhz before you even OC. And if you overclock your top Mhz OC'd will probably be similar with either chip. (3.2-3.5Ghz)

A 5700 or 9600 are sometimes slower than the 2 year old ti4200 in DX7 & DX8 stuff. And only better with DX9. Where if you get a 5900 it will blow all 3 (ti4200,5700 or 9600)

1GB is probably overkill right now, but will definitely help in the future.

[serlex]

any one know, why in oerclockers.co.uk prescott is cheaper than northwood. does that mean that its going to be slower.
what is the point of bring out slower cpus? and is there any benchmarks for prescott?

[Darkmatter]

They arent than much cheaper on a few quid. I would say OC UK hasnt adjusted its Northwood Prices, if you pop over to Aria or Microdirect you will see that the Northwoods are the roughly the same as OC UK's Prescotts.

[2800CC]

Thanks for the info all.
Very good point on saving the pounds on 200Mhz and spending it on a better GPU. I have listened to many people about AMD CPU's but I'm going for the Intel and will probably wait for the prescott to at least be launched fully and get a good review.
ThanX

[serlex]

sorry one more question, i didnt want to open a new prescott thread.

i have seen lots of benchmarks, but is it true that p4 3.0ghz or prescott 3.0ghz is better than athlon 64 3200+.

[Darkmatter]

Serlex i dont honestly know where the Prescotts stack up against the AMD's
You got any links to these benchmarks ? wouldnt mind having a look

[serlex]

just type amd64 3200+ benchmarks, heres some

[serlex]

type that in gogle or try tomshardware.com ,
and chrisf6969, how the hell did you overclock a 2.4 to 3.6
did you use vapochill or watercolling or just air

[serlex]

crap, just fund this...
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/...9118905,00.htm

now im very confused, does any one if the 775 socket is 64bit or still 32

[Darkmatter]

Prescotts are all 32bit but i believe there are 64bit instructions in the core but merely turned off till intel wants in implement then.

Just read the link, the reference to 64bit is in the successor to Prescott a CPU codenamed Tejas.
The Prescott will be released in socket 478 packages then it will move to the new Socket 775 later in the year. After than the Tejas CPU will take over on the Socket 775

That help at all