intel p4? which one!!!

[James Martin]

too many choices and diff specs its hard to tell which one too get

I have the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe mobo and £200 tops to spend on the cpu.

I am a "hardcore" gamer (for want of a better discription ) and have started to dabble wuth dvd/movie editing. I also use my pc for music making/mixing (have decks connected up and use propellerhead cubase studio). Enough about me and my wants/needs. As I said, I dont want to spend more than £200 on the cpu, easy/stable overclocking would be nice

I think the northwood 3.2 or the prescott 3.2 are my best choices with todays market. whats the diff betwen the two, I havn't looked at them extensivly but the only spec diff is the cache, 512 on the Northwood and 1mb on the Prescott. The only draw-back with the 3.2 Prescott is that lots of retailers have it advertised but out of stock with no delivery date.

I am also looking to purchase the cpu over the weekend.

Cheers,

oh and hello, as you can tell, this is my first post so be gentle

[mike_w]

Apparently, the Prescotts pump out far more heat than the equivalent Northwoods. Also, I would personally get a 2.8C rather than a 3.2C since its about £75 more expensive (from cpucity.co.uk) for only 400mhz more, but if you have the money to spend then a 3.2C Northwood should be a good choice.

[r1zeek]

Well, if your a "hardcore" gamer like me, then you'll be looking for something pretty fast. Now, the 3.2C (which has HT enabled if you didnt know) will set you back about £199.34 from www.overclock.co.uk Now with HT enabled (your board supports Hyper Threading) you can essentially run 2 CPU hungry programs at the same time. So you could be editing dvd's (ripping or such like) and still be having a good game of say UT2004. The difference between the Prescot and the Northwood is obviously the 64 bitness of the former but also in the amount of heat generated. Now, ok you may end up getting a bit better performance from a Prescott but you would need about a ton of copper to cool it. Prescotts have been know to produce heat upwards of 90 degrees, which must be pretty scary for the watercoolers.
Yeah, i'd stick with a P4 3.2C for the moment. You could get 200mhz extra, for about £97 and get a 3.4 but i dont really see the point in that.
Hope that helps ya

[James Martin]

64bit? I didnt know the prescotts were 64bit? if so the prescotts would be good for HL2... when it eventually comes out as it supports the pipelines?

does the cache make much difference? 512k northwood, 1mb prescott... the heat does concen me.

[skattrd]

No p4 is 64bit.

In real world apps etc. there is very little difference between the p4c and p4e except the p4e runs hotter.

Do a search for some reviews/comparisons - the p4c actually beats the prescott in some tests. The Prescott should perform better when new motherboards come out for it.

[r1zeek]

Yeah, well, if you decide you want to go for 64 bit Prescott, you might be sorry in maybe a few months as Intel will probably release newer/better revisions of the Prescott which address the heat issue. Right now is kinda a bad time for upgrading as the newer mobos, graphics cards and processors are coming out. The new mobo's are gonna have all the PCI express on, and have support for stuff like socket 939 and all the BTX form factor. So, i'd really wait until all the new stuff comes out, but if you are really hankering for a new processor i'd go for either a 2.8C (which I have got) or a 3.2C (if you don't mind spending that much on a processor) Getting a northwood would allow you to drop in a Prescott at a later date if the heat issues are cleared up and you are after a copy of HL2. I presonally would wait, as you might regret it if you shell out £200 on a new processor and in 2 or 3 months find that it can't cut the mustard in games like HL2 and Doom 3
What rig you got at the moment?

[James Martin]

i have a 1.2amd and a 2.2p4 but the specs dont bode too well as the rest of the components were scrimped on. the 1.2 is on its last legs and the 2.2 is straining under my demands.

[bouncin]

sorry to let u down m8y prescott isnt 64 bit compatible the only truly 64 bit intel chip at the moment is the itanium.

but david said in kustom last month that intel is goin to release a 64bit cpu soon which would be cool

[James Martin]

thanx all, stopped me getting the prescott. think the p43.2C is what I will get, now for the ram...

I like the Corsair XMS - DDR TwinX range, I have £150 (could stretch to a bit more) and want to get 512mb this month and another 512mb next month... the only advice I have been given thus far is "the lower the CAS the better". Their seems to be even more of a spec range to choose from CAS2, CAS3, 3200, 3700, 4000, Low Latency, EEC, unbuffered etc, etc... the mind boggles.

[bouncin]

no m8y cas is good but all timings should be as low as possible not just cas latency. Also just a few points for you so as u dont expect too much

the asus p4c800-e deluxe does lose a lot of vcore without being modded so high overclocks are less stable long term but once the mod is done it will work gr8 (just a bit of soldering)

the vdimm on the asus only goes to 2.85 which is low if ur lookin for some pc3200 to go high fsb with tight timings i recommend some pc3500 ram with good timings such as ocz limited edition, mushkin level 2 or level 1, or corsair pc3500c2. these modules of ram are not in production any more so ebay for em you will be happier in the end. Even with this fast ram to get its full potetial u would need vdimm of around 3.2 which is possible with another motherboard modification.

I love my asus but every peice of art needs a little tlc. when i have my board fully modded im hoping for 3.9-4.0 on my overclock.
only 2 weeks away ill let u know if its worth it just in case ur thinking of doin it urself.

oh and by the way good call on the prescott they are a bit carp at these low clock speeds they get velly hot too

[James Martin]

yeh, please do let me know, would be good to hear what happens.