3.2 Northwood or Prescott

[maddogatc]

Want to upgrade to a p4 3.2. But do I go Northwood (hard to find and anywhere from 20 to 80 bucks more expensive) or Prescott?

 

[clarkey01]

Northwood, the extra heat would just bother me. The performance is the same, they should be the same price, must bea real lack of northwoods, shame, Its one of the few Intel chips I tip my hat off to. I have a 2.8 C in one of my rigs, what you upgrading from ?

 

[GuinnessExtraStout]

If your motherboard will take either the Northwood is better
'
You can still get the 3.2 northwood for about 200$ now.
The 3.4c has become rarity now and commands 500$ or so. Was 300$ a couple months ago.

 

[nick1985]

northwood

 

[maddogatc]

Going from a p4 2.8b. That one will go to my son's computer.

 

[mwmorph]

the prescott will easily overheat if not cared for right.

 

[Big Lar]

Heh, I say with a decent Heatsink/fan combo, go Prescott, IMHO

 

[ScottFern]

Northwood. No question about it. The extra cache is negliable in most apps and gaming. And the Prescott runs way to hot. Northwood seems to be better for OCing too.

 

[miketheidiot]

If one is signifigantly cheaper than the other ($25+ difference), go with the cheaper. If prices are similar, go northwood.

 

[stevty2889]

Just go with the prescott if it is cheaper, and you are sure your motherboard will support it. The northwood will run cooler, and will have a very slight performance advantage, but isn't worth $80 more if you ask me.

 

[LouPoir]

Northwood is best. Cooler and better performance.

IMHO

Lou

 

[Jojo1971]

theres no reason why you have to spend more for the northwood..get a prescott ... just make sure you use AS5 /or similar product instead of the stock TIM found in intel stock HSF...

if youre planning to overclock, prescott would still be the way to go--it's easy to hit 3.6ghs with a 3.2E..using an aftermarket heatsink is recommended if youre planning to overclock a prescott..

...just my humble opinion..

 

[LTC8K6]

Prescott, hands down. While it is warmer, it's nothing to worry about at all with the stock cooler. It will likely be cheaper and it performs very close to Northwood in most areas except encoding, where Prescott is faster. Games that like the extra cache are also faster on Prescott, like Doom3. There is also SSE3 with prescott, which comes in handy when encoding and may become even more important as more software begins to use it.

 

[Synon25]

Personally I would go with the northwood. I have a 2.8 c northwood and i'm very happy with it. The prescott runs hotter, and performs a little worse in most applications. This is a link to a 3.0 c for 195 bucks on newegg.com.
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=19-116-163&depa=1

Here is a 3.2 on ebay for 195 bucks.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA...em=6734083774&rd=1

 

[LTC8K6]

3.0E OEM is 179, retail is 189. There is really no reason to pay more to get a Northwood. Unless your mobo won't take a Prescott.

 

[Synon25]

Less heat, lower power consumption and slightly better performance? That would be worth 16 extra bucks to me.

 

[LTC8K6]

The Northwood's slightly worse performance in encoding and some games makes it a tie, imo.

The heat, once again, is not really a factor at all, imo. The latest Prescott steppings are actually not much warmer than Northwoods, and even the early ones weren't anything a decent cooler couldn't handle. Not to mention when you factor in the heat the whole computer is putting out.

The extra power consumption is trivial in the overall picture, imo.

 

[JasonandBecky]

The price diff between a 3.2 northwood and a prescott is more like $40-50 now. Most companies that are under the "northwood" catagory in pricewatch actually only have prescotts (I have been checking for a few days myself).

 

[jose]

Northwood or A64

 

[Shenkoa]

Thats a broad question

Socket 754 or Sockt 939??

 

[maddogatc]

Thanks for the info. Probably go with the 3.2 northwood. Hard to find but may have found one for $289cdn ($235 us). It's the cheapest I've found in the Toronto area. If they can't get it then it's the prescott.

 

[maddogatc]

In response to Shenkoa. Abit IS7 motherboard socket 478