3.4GHz Prescott at THG

[Pariah]

Mixed bag. Great for video encoding, pretty poor in gaming. Doesn't look like it is scaling better than the Northwood. Maybe a few more speed grades are necessary.

Welcome The Latecomer: Pentium 4 Prescott 3.4 GHz

There's also a rundown of Intel's new number scheme. It's like the Opteron system, not the A64 ratings.

 

[Alkaline5]

It looks like Prescott is finally outpacing Northwood. In the dozen benches I looked at the 3.2E was slightly outperformed by the 3.2C, while the 3.4E nudges ahead of the 3.4C more often than not.

 

[XBoxLPU]

It is going to take a higher clocked Prescott to outpace the Northwood because of all the extra pipelines..etc.....

 

[Big Lar]

Its gonna take 4 gigs or better for the Prescott to beat the Northwood. Thats hands on...

 

[Schadenfroh]

why does intall not just lower the amount of pipelines?

 

[SickBeast]

because they want to hit really high clock speeds so they can claim to have an "uber-processor" that AMD cannot match.

 

[BFG10K]

I must admit that Prescott has been a little underwhelming; it's much better to buy a P4-C processor if you want to stick with Intel.

Me, I've gone to a 3200+ Ahtlon64.

 

[Snooper]

<disclaimer>I am NOT unbiased!</disclaimer>

I remember all the same kind of things being said with the first P4 came out. And then the Northwood. I agree that the Prescott doesn't impress much at this time. Give it time. As the P1262 process is refined, the clock speeds will ramp. They will introduce new steppings and revs to correct short comings and increase the parts speed. I'll be interested in were this thing is in 6 months. That might seem like a long time, but you will be moaning about the end of summer before you know it.

Man, that is a depressing thought....

What ever happens, I just hope that AMD stays on the ball and keeps pushing Intel.

 

[Markfw]

Well, based on this and my personal experience with the Athlon64, I think AMD has a winner (for now). I would be really curious to see what happens when we see a socket 939 from a reputable hardware reviewer, and also in dual channel ! The heat still appears to be a problem with the D0 stepping, so are they going to try again to get it right in steppings to get to 4 ghz ?

 

[nitromullet]

This is quite interesting actually. The fact that the Prescott 3.4, which I am guessing will retail for ~$435, can beat both the FX-53 and the P4 EE 3.4 in any benchmarks is significant. To top things off, price doesn't appear to be much of an argument for AMD anymore (at least with the A64's). Of course, for gaming the A64 is the way to go, but otherwise I don't really think that a clear winner can be declared between AMD vs Intel. The only thing that is clear is that going with an FX or an EE is just not worth the extra cost, which is really a good thing the way I see it.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

I agree with the assessment that the Prescott is probably going to be a repeat of the Willamette=>Northwood situation. Right now my greatest concern is not ramping up in Mhz but the resulting heat and current draw. These babies really cook! That said, it's not the processors you have to worry about, but the components that make up the motherboard's power regulating circuitry. Some of the reports I've read are that even mild overclocks are leading to interesting methods in cooling...

Looks like I'm be going P4C w/HT until things cool down a bit.

 

[jhu]

they should really be designing a processor with the highest performance/energy ratio. the temps on these current processors is rather ridiculous.

 

[caz67]

I can't wait for the 4GHZ models.

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Well, based on this and my personal experience with the Athlon64, I think AMD has a winner (for now). I would be really curious to see what happens when we see a socket 939 from a reputable hardware reviewer, and also in dual channel ! The heat still appears to be a problem with the D0 stepping, so are they going to try again to get it right in steppings to get to 4 ghz ?

He states at the beginning of his article that "all 3.4 GHz Prescotts are D0". Well that is not true as seen hereon Intel's site.