prescott vs. Northwood

[JSt0rm]

I want to upgrade my 2.4c to a 3.2 should I go for northwood or prescott? Is it worth the $200 upgrade?

why are the northwoods more expensive then prescotts? Better performance?

 

[superHARD]

Yes the northwood is a higher preforming chip...

The north wood has a lower step core (the lower the better, less overhead in a chip) that's why amd's preform better (low core steps) someone smarter than I am can explain this better I am sure.

If I were you I would go northwood they are also cooler than the prescott!

 

[LTC8K6]

Get whichever is cheaper. The differences between Northwood and Prescott are not enough to take one over the other. Prescott is a little better at media encoding than Northwood, and it's a little warmer. It also has SSE3, which may or may not come in handy in the future.

Make sure your board will handle a Prescott, if you decide to get one.

 

[MDE]

Why not overclock your current 2.4C? You could probably hit at least 2.8.

 

[imported_jensend]

Not worth it. Both are quite expensive (you could get a Paris core Sempron 3100+ and mobo for the price of the Northwood 3.2 and it'd give you over 90% the performance), the Northwood 3.2 will put out as much as 20W more than your current CPU while the Prescott 3.2 will put out another 20W on top of that, and the performance gains are rather meager. The 2.8C is the highest-clocked P4 I would recommend to anybody.

 

[epsilon9090]

Overclock, hands down.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: epsilon9090
Overclock, hands down.

 

[JSt0rm]

Thanks for the responses. I have 2 achilles heels so to speak when it comes to overclocking and AMD. 1) While I do game heavily and ocing would aid me in this I also use my computer as part of my music studio so I need stability (I also don't want to damage the audio card as it costs about $600) and 2) sadly my audio card manufacturer has very strict guidlines on what cpu (more like what chipsets) are used in the system. So I have been stuck with a intel cpu/intel chipset option since I've had this card.

So I've checked and my board and it for sure supports northwood and prescott. I understand what the first poster is saying about the step core. The question is, does the prescott offer better performance in media creation floating point calcs and what not?

 

[Bateluer]

I know my 2.4C could make 3.0 with stock cooling, my DDR400 RAM didn't like it though. Got the chip to post into windows with a nice copper HSF at 3.4Ghz too, but the RAM was even more unstable.

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

i reccomend overclocking. if you got a mobo that will do the fsb, i wouldn't be surprised if you could get that 2.4 to 3.2. my bro and i built one with a 2.6 running at 3.4 with stock cooling. run you're ram out of sync and it will still beat the performance of a real 3.2 cause of the high fsb

 

[MegaWorks]

Northwood for performance.

 

[hollowman]

Is there anyway you can tell whether you have a northwood or prescott by just looking at the retail box?

 

[miketheidiot]

3.0c is northwood
3.0e is prescot

if they list cache presscot has 1mB while northwood has 512kB

 

[hollowman]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
3.0c is northwood
3.0e is prescot

if they list cache presscot has 1mB while northwood has 512kB

well, i know that.. but the outside of the retail box doens't mention whether it's C or E. Just has 3ghz sticker on it.

i has hoping there was a way to differentiate by reading product code or something?

 

[CraigRT]

I'd go with the Northwood.. but in reality I'd try to push the 2.4C higher first.. I know you said your DDR400 didn't like that much, but what about a mem divider? I am sure you could get something to work.

I overclock my 2.4B at work with generic PC2700 and I can obtain some decent speeds from it

 

[imported_barcode]

hi JSt0rm01
"if" you buy an 3.2 P4 then without question a "scotty"! you could overclock your P42.4c with an FSB of 267 and 5:4 divisor towards the RAM's to 3.2 Gig's but it will be hot then, watercooling could be needed because the vcore must be leveled between 1.70 and 1.80 volts... -> my experience... see, there you have about the same power than the stock 3.2E!

but now see -> if you take the 3.2E you can overclock this one also and i would estimate that it is possible to bring him up to 4 gigs with a good cooling - according to anands tests and his conclusions the prescott is even with the nortwood at same clock... the prescott was designed to reach later higher clockrates and there it starts to let the northwood behind...

but you dont want to overclock if im right and you dont want an expensive cooling in your oven...
so, i suggest you buy nevertheless the 3.2E it is almost cheaper and you are ready for the future, if you want someday to start with heating it up and SSE3 (if it comes) and so on, the 3.2 northwood and 3.2 prescott are even in the speed! really! marginally difference in some disciplines so that you never gonne realize anything...

cheers...

 

[jayman7]

I've noticed that the Prescott (E) is much cheaper than the Northwood here at Zipzoomfly.

3.2C $250 vs. 3.2E $223

3.0C $211 vs. 3.0E $188

Why is that? From these prices, I would assume that the northwood is better than the prescott. I'm gonna build a new PC in the next months, and can't decide whether to get the 3.2C or 3.2E. I assumed the Prescott is faster and better, since the Prescott has 1MB compared to the northwood 512kb. What do you guys think?

 

[jszent]

with good cooling the prescott will leave the northwood behind...........of coarsse if you don't mind alittle heat on the pressy...........
I have several
2.4B SL6EF 533fbs
2.4C SL6Z3 800fbs
2.4C SL6WF 800fbs
2.4C SL6WF 800fbs
3.0C SL6WK 800 fsb
3.0E 800 fbs
3.20E SL7B8 800 fbs
And the 2 Prescotts run smoother than all the northwoods............

 

[Lithan]

Northwoods beat the prescott clock for clock in most things some encoding and Doom 3 being the only exceptions that come to mind.

Prescotts are MUCH hotter than northwoods. They also draw more power and have killed some older motherboards (even ones that support prescotts).

Prescotts apparently offer better HT performance, and support SSE3.

I would never recommend a prescott over a Northwood, except possibly for a rig that will be used only for encoding. But heat and power concerns might make me recommend the Northwood even then. Thusfar the only thing prescotts seem good for are LN2 SuperPi runs.

 

[AdamK474]

For about three weeks I was running a 3.2E at 3500MHz with a 14 multiplier (multiplier trick) on a P4C800 Deluxe. I moved to water cooling about a week ago because the temps were spiking past 70 degrees C. Well, since I moved to water cooling the absence of air from the CPU HSF caused one of the mosfets to burn out (at least thats what I think happened). I then bought a P4C800-E Deluxe to replace it and have since been running my good old 2.4C with the same water cooling. The mosfets are cool, the whole system is much cooler then with the prescott in it. I'm happier now too because with the P4C800 Deluxe I was only able to get 3000MHz stable, with the P4C800-E Deluxe, I can run 3120MHz with 1:1 memory speed (260MHz) all at default voltage. My suggestion is to get the P4C800-E instead and clock your 2.4C past 3GHz. The MSI Neo2 doesn't overclock as well as the Asus socket 478 boards.

With the new motherboard and water cooling on the 2.4C @ 3.12 I've seen my idle temps at 28C and my load temps at 41C. The 3.2E @ 3.5 was idling at 44C and at load was 58C. Not bad for a Prescott, but doesn't compare to the temps on my overclocked Northwood. The 2.4C is still an awsome CPU.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Go Gallatin. Go Extreme.

 

[Nutzo]

Go with a 3.0c Northwood.

My $200 Fry's special from a few months ago is running at 3.45 Ghz rock stable
(Pime 95 x 2, Mpeg compression, Room at 85 degrees, etc)

All with stock cooling, even using the pad on the heatsink :roll:

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
Thanks for the responses. I have 2 achilles heels so to speak when it comes to overclocking and AMD. 1) While I do game heavily and ocing would aid me in this I also use my computer as part of my music studio so I need stability (I also don't want to damage the audio card as it costs about $600) and 2) sadly my audio card manufacturer has very strict guidlines on what cpu (more like what chipsets) are used in the system. So I have been stuck with a intel cpu/intel chipset option since I've had this card.

So I've checked and my board and it for sure supports northwood and prescott. I understand what the first poster is saying about the step core. The question is, does the prescott offer better performance in media creation floating point calcs and what not?

you are in the right place . . . LEARN something about o/c'ing.

IF your board has a "lock" for PCI and AGP, you can safetly O/C withOUT affecting your peripherials (at all) . . . your video card/ audio card will be perfectly safe.

If you get 3Ghz from your 2.4c O/C (which is not unusual) you will have HIGHER performance than just droping a 3.2c into it.

Free is always good.


Prescott offers minimally better performance (at the highest clocks) BUT with a PENALTY - it runs HOT (and has been know to fry MBs).
:shocked:

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: jayman7
I've noticed that the Prescott (E) is much cheaper than the Northwood here at Zipzoomfly.

3.2C $250 vs. 3.2E $223

3.0C $211 vs. 3.0E $188

Why is that? From these prices, I would assume that the northwood is better than the prescott. I'm gonna build a new PC in the next months, and can't decide whether to get the 3.2C or 3.2E. I assumed the Prescott is faster and better, since the Prescott has 1MB compared to the northwood 512kb. What do you guys think?

I suspect it's a supply/demand issue. Intel is still making Prescotts, but they are likely not making many, if any, Northwoods. Also, the Northwood cpus are generally regarded as being faster, clock-per-clock, than Prescotts until around 3.5-3.6 ghz. As an added bonus, Northwoods run cooler.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: hollowman

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
3.0c is northwood
3.0e is prescot

if they list cache presscot has 1mB while northwood has 512kB

well, i know that.. but the outside of the retail box doens't mention whether it's C or E. Just has 3ghz sticker on it.

Nonsense. I have two retail boxes sitting here. One says 2.60C GHz on the round sticker and below it says 800-MHz System Bus, 512-KB L2 Advanced Transfer Cache. Also on FIVE sides of the box are the words "Pentium® 4 Processor Supporting Hyper-Threading Technology." The other box says 2.4A GHz on the round sticker and below it says 533-MHz System Bus, 1-MB L2 Advanced Transfer Cache. I think the boxes are really clear on the type of processor contained within.

If I were JSt0rm01 and wanted a bit faster performance without overclocking or a huge amount of money I would wait until Fry's has their P4 3.2E deal again, for $199. Take the ECS 848P chipset board it comes with and put the 2.4C chip on it, and sell that combo for $120 or so, then enjoy the $1 per 10MHz upgrade.