P4c performance is TERRIBLE

[AtomicDude512]

Welcome to AMD Palace, where everyone gets a solid overclock and no one's unhappy.

The funniest thing to me is that your buddies is probably a cheap $50 Athlon XP 1700 B overclocked to a 200Mhz bus.

 

[Balforth]

well you either overclock to save money, or you spend tons of money and overclock to be way faster than everybody. it's obvious i'm not in this to save money

 

[wilki24]

I hear you there!

Who wants to say "I have the fastest computer for a $200 upgrade." I like to say "I have the fastest computer I could reasonably afford." ;-)

I too went through some heatsink/thermal grease pains, and my advice is to spread it so thin that you think there isn't enough on it. Basically, put a small dab on the center, and use a credit card to spread it around and flatten it out. You should be able to see the markings on the CPU through the paste if you've done it right. (Assuming you lap your heatsink, if not, then apply just enough so that you can no longer read the markings, but keep it thin!)

You'll be amazed at how much cooler it runs when you're done. I'm running a P4 1.6 @ 2.4, and even though it's usually around 75F in this room, I don't see peak load temps over 50-55C. Idle, I run in the upper 30's.

 

[Balforth]

Now we're talking!!! I'm not overclocking at all ATM. I'll let it run like this for a day or two, then we'll start pushing the envelope!

New Sandra Benchmark

I should link a picture of what the bottom of my old heatsink looked like. Basically about 3 big globs where it made contact... that was it My proc now runs around 40C under load.

 

[Flatbroke]

spread it around with the edge of a business card

I know he was just trying to help, but this is bad advice. Read the Silver3 instructions, availible on the 'net. The smallest piece of anything foreign between the cpu and the hsf is a down grade of the contact heat transfer principle. A CREDIT CARD properly cleaned first, will have no paper dust, or paper fibers transfering to your paste like a paper product might.

 

[CraigRT]

P4 performance sucks period. that's why after fighting with 2 P4's I went back to AMD.. I have no idea what crossed my mind to run a crappy P4 CPU.. what a waste of money they are (totally overpriced)

dude, the exact same thing happened to me... I went and got an XP2500 for like $150 Canadian and couldn't be happier..

good luck,

 

[Balforth]

You have Sandra? What are your arithmetic benchmarks with your 2.5? Just curious how it compares.

Overclocked Benchmark!!!!

 

[Balforth]

Well, now that I have all this super duper cooling equipment, I'm overclocking and maintaining very low temperatures. I've been reading and people are saying that overclocking is useless unless your ram speed matches your cpu speed. Is there a point in me overclocking my motherboard bus to 220mhz when i'm only running dual channel ddr400 ram???