Is Prescott Worth The Wait

[willbemcse]

Decided to build a new system but saw this article last night on it's specs and prices. Also it will run much hotter than the current P4. The only difference I see is L2 is 1MB
a) Will it make a big performance difference.
b) I will using this rig for games , photoshop.
Here are the prices:-
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.40GHz - $999;
Intel Pentium 4 ?Northwood? 3.40GHz - $417;
Intel Pentium 4 SSE3 ?Prescott? 3.40GHz - $417;
Intel Pentium 4 SSE3 ?Prescott? 3.20GHz - $278;
Intel Pentium 4 SSE3 ?Prescott? 3.00GHz - $218;
Intel Pentium 4 SSE3 ?Prescott? 2.80GHz - $178;
Intel Pentium 4 SSE3 ?Prescott? 2.80A - $163;
Link

 

[McArra]

I think I'd go with A64, but that's just me.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: McArra
I think I'd go with A64, but that's just me.

Yeah, the Athlon64 is the cpu to use for gaming. Besides, neither gaming nor Photoshop need large amounts of cache.

 

[edmundoab]

well if you really want to build a system now and want a good processor,
I don't think its worth the wait

 

[Shimmishim]

i'm gonna have to agree here....

the 1meg l2 cache is nice but i'd just go ahead and build a system now..

new technology is comin' out constantly and there's just no way to keep up!

go with a 2.6C p4 system or an a64 system

 

[RussianSensation]

b) I will be using this rig for games, photoshop.

I have a p4 3.2 HT and I must admit if there are areas where AMD is MUCH BETTER THAN INTEL RIGHT NOW happen to be just those 2 areas you are most interested in. Therefore, it is in your best interest to get a 939 socket AMD processor

you can read a review of amd's dominance in those 2 fields here (Athlon 3400+ vs. P43.2XE vs. P4 3.2)

 

[lifeguard1999]

How soon do you need the rig? In the 2Q there is going to be a major shift from DDR -> DDR2, AGP --> PCI-Express, and a change in sockets. It may make little sense for you to upgrade now when everything is about to change. Or then again, if you plan to keep it a couple years, it might be a good time.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
b) I will be using this rig for games, photoshop.

I have a p4 3.2 HT and I must admit if there are areas where AMD is MUCH BETTER THAN INTEL RIGHT NOW happen to be just those 2 areas you are most interested in. Therefore, it is in your best interest to get a 939 socket AMD processor

you can read a review of amd's dominance in those 2 fields here (Athlon 3400+ vs. P43.2XE vs. P4 3.2)

I didn't know the A64 was so strong in PS :Q Btw, if he's building anytime soon then skt939 is out of the question so skt754 is the way to go.

 

[Swanny]

No, it's not worth the wait. The Athlon 64 3400+ is here now. It's better for gaming anyway.

 

[User1001]

its funny becuase people said the exact same thing as intel before the a64 was released...sorry had to make that comment.

There's alway going to be newer, better, products released in the near future at any point in time. If you're going to buy intel, (I'd go for a64), wait for new Mobos and stuff so you won't have upgrading problems.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

I didn't know the A64 was so strong in PS :Q Btw, if he's building anytime soon then skt939 is out of the question so skt754 is the way to go.

However, it would appear that if you were using PS 8, then Intel is the better choice.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3400_13.html

 

[tallman45]

The Prescott's are due in early Feb (I read), if that is the case then we are looking at 3 weeks. Once they hit look for pricing of the P4 C's to drop in price. You win on either count on a Prescott or a less expensive P4 C.

During this timeframe the SIS 655Tx based motherboards will also be out, dropping the price of 865/875 as well. Again a win whichever one you choose.

 

[willbemcse]

I can few more weeks to build a new pc. I am kind of leary of getting a brand new chipset which is not being fully tested also prescott will run much hotter than regular P4 right. As everything will be brand new price will be more for ddr2 and I hope price drops for old C .


If I build one now I want to keep that for couple of years, kept mine 1.5 for 3 years before I upgraded.

 

[mechBgon]

If you were a video-encoding maniac, then the new SSE3 instructions could be a significant boost if they do what Intel says (up to 30% improvement in video encoding sometimes?). 64-bit OS appears to have similar potential for the A64, however... some encoding benchies at LinuxHardware were seeing boosts of about 30% under 64-bit.

If it were me, I'd adopt the "lease" outlook. Buy your P4 or A64 now, and it may not be as fast as Prescott... but you'll have a heck of a head start and you can slap it down in For Sale & Trade when the hot new thing comes out. Sell... buy... smile. Trying to pick a good time to jump in is going to paralyze you.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Accord99

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

I didn't know the A64 was so strong in PS :Q Btw, if he's building anytime soon then skt939 is out of the question so skt754 is the way to go.

However, it would appear that if you were using PS 8, then Intel is the better choice.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3400_13.html

Exactly...that is what ppl are forgeting to look at in reviews...What version of the software was used...photoshop 8 is optimized for HT and therefore no surprise the P4 takes the lead back...earlier version wsas optimized for SSE2 which was nice for P4's until the Athlon64 came out with its SSE2....That leveled the playing field and Athlons powerful IPC took over....Now it is HT time and in most instances where intel has leads in apps can usually be attributed to this....


Notice how the P4 ges hammered (no pun intended) in sysark and content creation 2002 which is not really optimized for either but the overall power of the athlon64 takes over...NOw in other reviews INtel 3.2ghz even wins a few office benchmarks..reasons???? They used the 2004 version which if you read is using te latet adobe and other software many of which have some optimization for HT and once again that helps the P4 considerably....


People really need to start reading more then just anandtech and their favortite gaming site for revews...read multiple review and question the different results and then when you look into it you start to see the important factors...

 

[Duvie]

What happened to the rports the prescott was to have a slightly larger L1 cache as well??? I say between the 1gb cache (which helps the centrino in certain apps), SSE3, rumored optimizations of HT and ofcourse 3.4ghz the intel P4 will be right there and likely will still be behind in gaming but will narrow the gap in those fields and widen the gap in the others....

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: Duvie
What happened to the rports the prescott was to have a slightly larger L1 cache as well??? I say between the 1gb cache (which helps the centrino in certain apps), SSE3, rumored optimizations of HT and ofcourse 3.4ghz the intel P4 will be right there and likely will still be behind in gaming but will narrow the gap in those fields and widen the gap in the others....

There's several improvements that may be in Prescott's L1 data and instruction trace cache.
-L1 data cache doubles in size to 16KB is almost certainly there, and should help significantly in HT situations
-there is good evidence that instruction trace cache is increased from 12K micro-ops, to 16K micro-ops
-there is also a possibility that the trace cache will increase from an issue rate of 6 micro-ops/2 cycles to 4 micro-ops/1 cycle

All these improvements should show a noticeable increase across the board, especially for HT. Prescott also has 30-40 million transistors that are not accounted for by the known improvements, even if 64-bit capabilities are included, so there may be surprises left for Intel to pull off at the launch, or in the future. If your interested in more info, see also here for some very detailed guesses at Prescott's improvements:

http://www.chip-architect.com/news/2003_03_06_Looking_at_Intels_Prescott.html
http://www.chip-architect.com/news/2003_04_20_Looking_at_Intels_Prescott_part2.html

 

[Duvie]

NIce read...If they got half of that stuff right in the article this thing will be quite amazing..Maybe we will have to chalk it up to poor preview or maybe even some stuff not fully running yet....Just like initial athlon64 reviews which we equaling porr...I would love it if the prescott came in and wowed even the AMD crowd....

 

[knouri]

Isn't prescott only coming out with a 533mhz front side bus? That would put a damper on all of these improvements.

 

[zephyrprime]

Rumors have it that the prescott is actually a little bit slower than the northwood or only a little faster. It's not worth the wait at all. And SSE3 is only a crummy 4 additional not so useful instructions.

 

[ntrights]

Isn't prescott only coming out with a 533mhz front side bus?

No not only. A ones (2.4A, 2.8A) will have 533, SSE3 1MB of cache and no HT, regular ones (2.8, 3.0, 3.4) will have 800, SSE3 1MB of cache and HT

 

[willbemcse]

I only found one board Abit AI7 which will support Prescott. Does anyone has this board , whats the difference between this and IC7-G except gigabit and 4 SATA . I want to build a P4 not AMD cann't afford 64bit.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: willbemcse
I only found one board Abit AI7 which will support Prescott. Does anyone has this board , whats the difference between this and IC7-G except gigabit and 4 SATA . I want to build a P4 not AMD cann't afford 64bit.

You could probably build a A64 3000+ system for about the price of a P4 system.

 

[Vigo13]

It will probably be a little while before they build the boards that make buying a prescott worth it.

However... since its right around the corner you may want to hold off on building any northwood systems since I'm sure the prices will drop shortly after prescott hits the market (if its on time).

Makes me wish I waited the extra month before building my 2.6 ...

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
Rumors have it that the prescott is actually a little bit slower than the northwood or only a little faster. It's not worth the wait at all. And SSE3 is only a crummy 4 additional not so useful instructions.

that was with early silicon and before some of the multiple revisions and different steppings they have been working through to solve issues of heat and power leakage....

You AMD boys need to remember how miserable looking the A64 chips was looking on its early review releases, often times not beating the 3200+ Barton...Oh how quickly you forget....get your bashing in now...