P4 2.80E Prescott or northwood 2.80C

[pradeepka]

Hi,


I recently assembled a pc. The config is like :-

P4 2.80E GHZ
Intel 865GBF MOtherboard
2x256MB DDR400 SDRAM

Right now im confused whether i shouldve opted for the Northwood, after reading a couple of reviews.
Im not an overclocker. so should i stick with this or get a Northwood. Therr r no probs as such now, but i can change to northwood now if i need to, after some time most prob the shop wont take it back.

Please advice... shld i stick with the prescott or go for the 2.80C Northwood.

Thnkz

 

[Margalus]

your gonna hear a lot of anti prescott stuff, but take it with a grain of salt. Most of those people have never actually used one, so they are operating on hearsay.

in reality, do whatever you want, you won't really notice a differece in use. Some things the prescott is marginally faster at and some things the northwood is marginally faster. If you didn't already have it I would lean towards the northwood. But since you already have it, I would just go ahead and keep it. I have a 2.8E and 2.8C and cannot tell the difference in actual use.

 

[TotalImmortal]

It depends what you do with the computer, but i would get the northwood for most thisgs, especialy if you are not going to overclock it as prescotts main advantage is the ability to clock higher.
Basicaly, look at the benchmarks allover the web and consider what you use it for then decide which will serve you better.
Hope that helps some.

 

[horto008]

Just make sure you have a good HS/F. I'm running a 3.2E and wasn't getting good temps (>57º) at full load with stock...purchased a Thermaltake Spark p7 with some arctic silver 5 from newegg and am now keeping it around 52 at full load.

As far as performance goes...like most websites suggest it is up in the air. Personally, I haven't noticed any difference in using Northwood or a Prescott - but I still brag about my 1MB cache!

 

[pradeepka]

Basically ill be using it for Gaming ... After reading the comparisons on websites, i dont see much a difference b/w 2.80C and 2.80E..

 

[smahoney]

Most of the complaints about the Prescott is the small percentage loss in many of tadays benchmarks and the high temps.

The benchmarks are not really an issue as software is not available yet to take advantage of the additional properties the prescott offers - SSE3 and additional hyperthreading advantages. The 1MB cache is nice but the additional pipelines hold it back.

Temps are more of an issue along with power consumption and most of the complaints come from overclocker's - and rightly so. At stock speeds this is not an issue. At high overclock's many motherboards are unable to provide stable amperage to the cpu and there have been several motherboards that have gone poof - including a cloud of smoke. The M0 stepping of the 2.8C is also an incredible overclocker. The issues of temperature and power are expected to be fixed - partially at least in the next steppign of the prescotts which should be hitting oems sometime in may or june.

So you won't see much of a difference between the prescott and northwood at stock speeds or with a low overclock. I have worked with both prescotts and northwoods and there are advantages to both depending on cooling, quality motherboards and power supplies. Since you already have the prescott, i don't recommend changing at this time - especially since you don't want to overclock and can't anyway with that motherboard.

Good Luck

 

[MegaWorks]

get the Prescott, more cache speed
and buy a good heatsink to cool this puppy

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B DLT3C 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.775v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nForce2-U400)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2800RPM
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

 

[LTC8K6]

Since you're not overclocking, keep the Prescott. It would not be worth it for you to switch to a Northwood, imo. Most of the heat complaints are from overclockers. You should be fine and you won't notice the difference between Prescott and Northwood.

 

[MichaelZ]

realistically... the only problem is heat. you'll need a decent cooler to go with it. stock is pretty cruddy.

 

[Optimummind]

I have a 2.8E Prescott and it runs fine. I have no heat issues either. I don't know where the websites got their heat-related problem info from but they seem to have jumped the gun before really testing out and using the Prescott CPUs.

Mine is currently OC'ed to 3.41 from 2.8 and my normal temp is between 29-33 (I have AC in my room). Under load, it goes up to 36-37 max. Usually, it hovers around the 34-35 C range.

Also, the Prescott is likely to be more future-proof as application dev's include code to take advantage of the Prescott's new extensions, the additional cache, and SSE3.

 

[Jgtdragon]

Originally posted by: Optimummind
I have a 2.8E Prescott and it runs fine. I have no heat issues either. I don't know where the websites got their heat-related problem info from but they seem to have jumped the gun before really testing out and using the Prescott CPUs.

Mine is currently OC'ed to 3.41 from 2.8 and my normal temp is between 29-33 (I have AC in my room). Under load, it goes up to 36-37 max. Usually, it hovers around the 34-35 C range.

Also, the Prescott is likely to be more future-proof as application dev's include code to take advantage of the Prescott's new extensions, the additional cache, and SSE3.

Its cool on your system becasue you got AC and H20 cooling?

 

[Soulkeeper]

the only reason i got the prescott was because my P4 couldn't hit 3ghz and didn't have HT
i also wanted sse3 just because

..ohh and i wanted bragging rights