These Northwoods are pretty slick...

[Daovonnaex]

<< If P4's were available in a dual platform, I'd jump on them. But right now XP's are my CPU of choice. Northwood is great, but I love my dualie AMD.

Viper GTS >>

They are available in dual, except the dual version is called the Xeon. It's available in up to 2.2GHz now.

 

[WarCon]

Well said Insane3D, I mean if someone here was trying to decide which system to get then I could see the attempt to convince. But this threads purpose was basically to say........."The new processor that I just set up is pretty dang nice." It could of been the XP 1500+ or the 1.6A. Honestly who here actually wants to admit that they run an unstable system? Mine has its moments, usually related to my overclock, but not always (driver compatibility and some hardware compatibility creates issues and always will no matter who makes what.). My T-bird 1ghz @ 1.4ghz has served me well and still will as my wife's computer (after I figure out how to mount a heatsink with no socket tabs (broke off with my first waterblock holddown). I have absolutely enjoyed tinkering with my Abit KT7A (voltage mods and new heatsinks and modded my supply).

I plan on having as much fun with my 1.6A thats on the way. I have seen the comparisons and I chose the Intel product. Am I dumb because I picked Intel. All I can say is (when I seen that 366A Celeron's were hitting 550 regularly with moderate cooling my K6-2 400 was sold and I never regretted it - gotta love the BX chipset).

 

[jonmcc33]

How are they "impressive" when you don't have any clock speeds, benchmarks, or ES at hand?

Read and you'll see why. I already answered the same question and I won't answer it again. There are more things in life other than clock speeds, benchmarks, and "ES".

 

[Sid03]

they aren't impressive, jon... because they don't exist. all that exists is one "sample" that runs around 800mhz, and is incapable of running an OS.

what's wrong with the northwood being a good cpu? why would that be so hard to accept?

i'll never understand the zealotry.

 

[Sid03]

and why the need to bring that crap into this thread?

nice o/c, insane. i'm looking forward to giving one a whirl. (just like i looked forward to my athlon. just like i'll look forward to my hammer... or whatever else comes out next year.)

 

[jonmcc33]

they aren't impressive, jon... because they don't exist. all that exists is one "sample" that runs around 800mhz, and is incapable of running an OS.

They don't exist? What is this then? If it's real, if it exists within a 3D world, it exists. Sure, it's just a sample but it does exist. It ran fine on Windows XP.

"The first system was a ClawHammer running 32-bit Windows XP, straight from the box with no modifications."

what's wrong with the northwood being a good cpu? why would that be so hard to accept?

I know that the Northwood is a good CPU. Well, the higher clocked releases are if we're looking at default clock speed (what the average consumer will see). A 1.6A at default will not beat out my 1.4GHz AMD Thunderbird.

 

[Radboy]

Very nice. Where'd you get the chip?

 

[Insane3D]

"Very nice. Where'd you get the chip?"

Thanks. I bought it from Mwave.

 

[Radboy]

Is there a particular batch, place, country, reseller that gives you a better chance at getting a smoker like you have, or is it purely luck of the draw? Anyway to hedge my bets?

 

[Siddhartha]

Nice overclock!

 

[FishTankX]

<< <<1. Intel chipsets guarrantee stability
2. Intel solutions have better compatbility
3. AMD cooling solutions are pricey and noisy
4. AthlonXP cannot be overclocked with stability
5. P4 is now a better value than AthlonXP>>

<<1. How so? An overclocked system is never a garauntee of stability...>>
It is if yields are good enough that intel could just label these as 2GHZ P4's anyways..
<<2. What is not compatible with AMD Athlon XP? Okay, I know... socket 370. You certainly have a point if thats what you meant.>>
Two words. infinite loop
<<3. Last time I checked they all cost the same.>>
AMD cooling sollutions either require noisy fans or don't perform very well at overclocking *at all* and please, don't try to deny that. A P4 with an MC478X and a silencer 80MM fan will do great at overclocking a northwood, and is quiet. I can't say that about Athlon performance coolers. An intel stock cooler will get a 1.6A up to around 2GHZ, for a 25% overclock. Can an AMD stock HSF get an AthlonXP 1600+ up to 1.66GHZ?
<<4. Would you like soup to eat with that crow?>>
Now, this is completly true. AthlonXP's can be overclocked with complete stability.
5. <<Not hardly. I can go buy an XP1500+ and run it around 1.7GHz. Those 1.6a's are alone within $30 of the cost of an XP1500+ and motherboard.>>
You're telling me that I can buy a *quality, lasting* and an AthlonXP 1500+ for 170$?!!?

 

[MrGrim]

<< 1.How so? An overclocked system is never a garauntee of stability...
It is if yields are good enough that intel could just label these as 2GHZ P4's anyways..
2. What is not compatible with AMD Athlon XP? Okay, I know... socket 370. You certainly have a point if thats what you meant.
Two words. infinite loop
3. Last time I checked they all cost the same.
AMD cooling sollutions either require noisy fans or don't perform very well at overclocking *at all* and please, don't try to deny that. A P4 with an MC478X and a silencer 80MM fan will do great at overclocking a northwood, and is quiet. I can't say that about Athlon performance coolers. An intel stock cooler will get a 1.6A up to around 2GHZ, for a 25% overclock. Can an AMD stock HSF get an AthlonXP 1600+ up to 1.66GHZ?
4. Would you like soup to eat with that crow?
Now, this is completly true. AthlonXP's can be overclocked with complete stability.
5. Not hardly. I can go buy an XP1500+ and run it around 1.7GHz. Those 1.6a's are alone within $30 of the cost of an XP1500+ and motherboard.
You're telling me that I can buy a *quality, lasting* and an AthlonXP 1500+ for 170$?!!? >>



1. Intel tests the CPUs and finds the highest possible speed at which they are 100% stable. Then they drop the spec speed by several MHz.
2. Everything is compatible with AMD AthlonXP. It's not the CPU that is unstable, it's the platform. If you want me to list the incompatibilities be ready for a big list.
3. My AMD Athlon Thunderbird with a massive heatsink and an 80mm fan. It idles at 60C and hits 80C at full load.
4. lol look at your first point ... "An overclocked system is never a garauntee of stability..."
5. 1.6A's overclock at an average of 2.4GHz with stock cooling. An AthlonXP can't even do 100MHz more with stock cooling.

I made the mistake to buy a VIA motherboard and an AMD Thunderbird that can heat up my flat better than my cetral heating system. Never again.

 

[MadRat]

Insane3D-
<<I was really hoping this wouldn't turn into a AMD vs. Intel thread, but apparently it has. The whole point of this thread was just to show a succesful overclock of one of these new Northwood CPU's.>>

Well I digress and want to make a point about the P4. Its great that people are overclocking the Pentium 4. Its just a shame that the average overclock is done with DDR RAM where it wastes a good deal of performance potential.

This reminds me when VIA brought out the Apollo Pro 133 chipsets. A similarly priced BX chipset would outperform it by 2-3%. However that was only if the VIA chipset overclocked the same chip to a higher overall speed. Head to head, at the same MHZ, the BX would outperform it more like 5-7%.

It irritates the hell out of me to see "I run my 1.6a at 2.6GHz!" then read about 160+fsb on DDR RAM. There is just way too many tests out there that show RDRAM blowing the wheels off these overcooked DDR 1.6a users. These DDR users are just excarcerbating the MHz myth.

MrGrim-
<<1. Intel tests the CPUs and finds the highest possible speed at which they are 100% stable. Then they drop the spec speed by several MHz.>>
Bullcrap. They do not intentionally drop the spec. They fill the bins of the highest rating with the highest rated chips then drop the remainder of the stock to lower speed bins to fill in where there is demand.
<<2. Everything is compatible with AMD AthlonXP. It's not the CPU that is unstable, it's the platform. If you want me to list the incompatibilities be ready for a big list.>>
We are waiting. Do Insane a favor and begin a new thread with them. You can link from here to your new thread. If its such a massive list no need to clutter Insane's thread.
<<3. My AMD Athlon Thunderbird with a massive heatsink and an 80mm fan. It idles at 60C and hits 80C at full load.>>
Sorry to hear that. Not all AMD chips are made equally.
<<4. lol look at your first point ... "An overclocked system is never a garauntee of stability...">>
A garauntee works both ways. It doesn't garauntee it will or will not perform a certain way. If you cannot discern the difference then poor you.
<<5. 1.6A's overclock at an average of 2.4GHz with stock cooling. An AthlonXP can't even do 100MHz more with stock cooling.>>
Wait a minute, this here early model 1500+ runs 24/7 at 1.6GHz. Its using the fan that came with it.

FishTankX-
<<Two words. infinite loop>>
Yeah, okay. I can create the problem on any platform, whether Intel or otherwise. But to you its an AMD problem. Nice statement of fact, moron. Save yourself some trouble and use the search function. You'll find its a problem with NVidia cards, not the CPU makers.

 

[BlvdKing]

I really do understand why people are going bananas over the NW 1.6A. It has all the characteristics of a good CPU, except for a low IPC.

Even still, I'm waiting for the TBred because I just bought an IWill XP333, and I hope this CPU will beable to push a 166 MHz FSB with a locked multiplier. I am getting really good Sandra memory scores with my TBird @ 1424 MHz (8*178 MHz) and don't want to lower my FSB to ~150 or even 133 MHz and see my memory score go out the window.

We'll see how the TBred stacks up to the Northwood soon and I hope it's a good fight, esp. on the overclocking front.

 

[Dug]

<< It irritates the hell out of me to see "I run my 1.6a at 2.6GHz!" then read about 160+fsb on DDR RAM. There is just way too many tests out there that show RDRAM blowing the wheels off these overcooked DDR 1.6a users. >>


Can you please point the way to these tests -
I want to see a direct comparison between an Asus p4b266 and a p4te or th7ii at 133, 140, 150, and 160fsb.
I want to see what application get blown away by using rdram.
Some obscure program that none of us use perhaps?


I'm not arguing that rdram isn't better. But its not better for everybody.
In fact I would prefer to build a rdram system myself, but
a majority of these people, including myself that are building these p4 systems already had DDR.
Therefore making this a quick, cheap, quiet, satisfying upgrade. And that's the bottom line.
Not being able to run some program 1-3% faster because they didn't buy rdram doesn't really make any difference.

 

[jonmcc33]

and don't want to lower my FSB to ~150 or even 133 MHz and see my memory score go out the window.

God forbid if you lower your FSB and have a stupid score decrease. You should overclock for performance increase, not a dumb score.

 

[BlvdKing]

Your point is taken, but it's obvious that lowering the FSB to 150 or 133 MHz will decrease performance. Even if I am able to change the divider to 1/4 (which I would not do at 150 due to higher PCI bus speeds) I still don't think the performance would be as good as the performance at 178 MHz with a 1/5 divider.

My point is that I would like to run the FSB at 166+ MHz, which is what I payed for.

EDIT: the memory score should be a reflection of performance. Also, I would run the FSB and CPU as high as I could even if the performace gains were only 1% in most apps.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Gear,

I'm not so certain that Thorougbred's will be easier to overclock.... ZDnet Germany posted Wattage numbers for Thoroughbred chips, and nothing has been posted in hte 5-days since to contradict what they posted.

The keys: Thoroughbred is only 10% cooler than comparably clocked XP chip, and that can be attributed to the lower Vcore. But since the Thoroughbred core is 80 sq mm, and the XP is 128 sq mm, Thermal Output per sq mm is 50% higher on the Thoroughbred. Of course, this depends on ZDnet Germany being accurate, but seeing as how Ace's linked to the article wtihout making any mention of refuting the data, and I do not believe zdnet germany would post false information.

SO, in the end, the Thoroughbred may be very hard to overclock. You're talking 60+Watts of heat on a tiny, tiny contact surface. Sure, its great for AMD in terms of number of chips per wafer, but its hell on cooling. Deficiency's in Thermal interface, cooling contact surface, die cracks, etc will be exacerbated. It'll be interesting to see the overclocking on them, htough, despite this.


Mike

 

[boyRacer]

Theres always a god damn zealot... :|

 

[jonmcc33]

the memory score should be a reflection of performance.

Benchmark scoring doesn't really measure the performance ability of your system. 3DMark2001 has the Radeon 8500 as the best video card on the market but real world 3D gaming benchmarks show otherwise.

I only benchmark on SiSoft Sandra and 3DMark2001 to test stability of my system. I could care less what it tells me about performance.

 

[XBoxLPU]

why wait for the T-bred.. ?

When the northwood 1.6a has a .13 micron core and 512k on cache..

And you can OC to over 2ghz..

Will be getting me one soon..

Bu-bye AMD Thunderbird 1ghz...

 

[christoph83]

He isn't going to have to upgrade then, but he will when Intel goes away from the 478 socket like they did with the socket 423 P4. If someone had a 1.5GHz Socket 423 P4 then they'd have to upgrade their motherboard just to get new P4 Northwood. I'm not saying not to spend money on technology, but that doesn't mean I'd get a GeForce4 Ti to replace my GeForce3 Ti. I'll wait till the next generation DX9 cards come out till I upgrade my video card again. I view it the same with processors. I look at whether it is worth it to upgrade.

Eh? And when is intel going away from the 478 socket? Not anytime this year. Someone buying a XP now is going to have to make the same change when they buy a clawhammer.

I know that the Northwood is a good CPU. Well, the higher clocked releases are if we're looking at default clock speed (what the average consumer will see). A 1.6A at default will not beat out my 1.4GHz AMD Thunderbird.

Yeah your overclocked 1ghz tbird. Provide some benches with this sorta stuff.

God forbid if you lower your FSB and have a stupid score decrease. You should overclock for performance increase, not a dumb score.

Why are you acting like most people here are stupid and dont know what their doing? Usually a higher score in *most* tests result in an overall performance boots,including memory scores.

It irritates the hell out of me to see "I run my 1.6a at 2.6GHz!" then read about 160+fsb on DDR RAM. There is just way too many tests out there that show RDRAM blowing the wheels off these overcooked DDR 1.6a users. These DDR users are just excarcerbating the MHz myth.

Uh no . 160FSB with DDR equates to around 2400/2400 sisoft 2002 scores which is on par with PC800 RDRAM. Provide some proof that RDRAM is blowing the wheels off DDRAM besides Tom's Hardware 3ghz overclock northwood running default PC2100 DDR speeds. Most users that overclock are seegin 300-400mb/s extra boost than what tom's hardware had. Most benchmarks ive seen show default DDRAM about 5% slower at most with PC800 +/- a few points. Anyway why would this irritate you? The combo is still fast as hell anyway and you wont even notice a difference between DDR and RDRAM except in 3dmark2001. 350FPS at 640x480 is quakeIII doesnt mean anything.

 

[AGodspeed]

Good damn Insane, suddenly me feels jealous. :disgust:

Sorry if I didn't catch your answer in this thread, but is your chip Costa Rica or Malay?

Oh, and it flies through Seti@Home WU's in under 3 hrs.! :Q

Doh! Me looks at 5hr SETI average and cries.

 

[LXi]

<<why wait for the T-bred.. ?

When the northwood 1.6a has a .13 micron core and 512k on cache..

And you can OC to over 2ghz..

Will be getting me one soon..

Bu-bye AMD Thunderbird 1ghz...>>

Do us a favor and just shell yourself in your little P4 utopia and say bu-bye to the rest of the world.

 

[prontospyder]

Very nice overclock Insane3D.

Did you get the temps from Motherboard Monitor 5? If so, are you using Asus2 or Asus2 CUSL2 sensor?