Gaming performance: Celeron D vs P4 @ same speed?

[Xeon22]

Hi guys,


I recently purchased a Celeron D 325J CPU in hopes of a high o/c, however, my gigabyte 915P board does not have PCI locks, so I cannot overclock it too much past 3GHz without encountering problems. I can't even POST at 800FSb because of memory issues with the board (won't let me lower memory lower than 500MHz DDR @ 800FSB). I bought it as a value setup and I don't have uber memory. So, I guess I'm going to have to spend a little more cash and leap for a P4 2.8E or so, but before I do, is th ere any significant gaming performance differences between them? I bought a 6600 vanilla, and have expected some lower than expected results, probably from only being able to run the Celeron @ 3.05GHz.

Any insight would be helpful.

Thanks

 

[CheesePoofs]

If that mobo doesn't have a pci lock, why not just get a new mobo that does instead of upgrading the CPU? It would probably be cheaper, and you could OC like you wanted to.

 

[Xeon22]

From what I understand, 915P chipset motherboards do not have a PCI lock, because Intel did not incorperate one. I got this board for under $100, and most good ABIT / ASUS boards are close to $200, those that have good overclocking abilities. From what I'm hearing, this chipset isn't good for overclocking anyway, but I did want to go PCI-E.

 

[Cloud84]

You'd be surprised man. Hop over to the For Sale/Trade forum and look around, maybe make a WTB thread and have some people throw some offers your way. Got some really good deals floating around, might find something that suits your fancy.

 

[Vette73]

What board do you have now? I thought ALL 915/925 boards have a PCI lock?

 

[zakee00]

Originally posted by: Xeon22
Hi guys,


I recently purchased a Celeron D 325J CPU in hopes of a high o/c, however, my gigabyte 915P board does not have PCI locks, so I cannot overclock it too much past 3GHz without encountering problems. I can't even POST at 800FSb because of memory issues with the board (won't let me lower memory lower than 500MHz DDR @ 800FSB). I bought it as a value setup and I don't have uber memory. So, I guess I'm going to have to spend a little more cash and leap for a P4 2.8E or so, but before I do, is th ere any significant gaming performance differences between them? I bought a 6600 vanilla, and have expected some lower than expected results, probably from only being able to run the Celeron @ 3.05GHz.

Any insight would be helpful.

Thanks

another thing to think about, unlocking that 6800 vanilla.
step-by-step guide

Nick

 

[Markfw]

Why did you buy an Intel board for gaming ? AMD rules in that domain....

 

[zakee00]

shut up mr dual opteron-2GB-x800 Pro-SCSI!!!!!!!!

thats one kickass rig!

 

[Sc4freak]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
What board do you have now? I thought ALL 915/925 boards have a PCI lock?

They do. And a setting to lock the PCI-Express bus too. But setting these actually limited my overclock...

 

[Xeon22]

Ok, I'm using the Gigabyte GA-8915P Duo-A motherboard.

If it does have a PCI lock, it doesn't have an option for it. I couldn't get it past 149FSB untill I did a BIOS update. This gave me the option to lock my PCI-E bus to 100MHz, but I found by doing so, it did not help me at all. Leaving it as Auto gave me upto 175FSB booting into windows, with my CPU vcore set at 1.275. I cannot get it to boot up @ 180 for the life of me. It does not post but once every blue moon, and the time I did get it to POST, it loaded right into windows. Also, anything past 160FSB, the motherboard will not detect my S/ATA HDD on a warm boot, so I usually have to shut the machine off and back on if I'm past 160FSB.

 

[Xeon22]

So apparrently none of the 915 boards have a "working" lock. There is an article here on anandtech somewhere that states that, and also moreso in their 915/925x board roundup. ABIT & ASUS seemed to have overcome the intel overclocking lock among other things, so I've decided to pick up an ASUS board to see what it can do.

 

[MisterChief]

About gaming performance: Unfortunately, YES THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE! Check out the HL2 and Doom 3 articles on the Main Anandtech. I was shocked at how big of a performance hit there was. I'll have a URL shortly.

Edit: Here's the HL2 comparison.