Home News Reviews Forums Shop


Pentium 4: Northwood or Prescott?

CPU's? Motherboards? Video cards? Talk about it here.

Pentium 4: Northwood or Prescott?

Postby dodecahedron on Sun Jul 25, 2004 7:12 am

what's your opinion?
which is better?

(i might be getting a P4 3.0 or 3.2 soon).

according to benchmarks (THG) they're more or less the same...in some benches Northwood is better in some Prescott.
user opinions/experiences appreciated.

anyone know how they compare in being overclocking friendly?
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the land of Mordor, where the Shadows lie
-- JRRT
M.C. Escher - Reptilien
User avatar
dodecahedron
DVD Polygon
 
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sat Mar 09, 2002 12:04 am
Location: Israel

Postby BurninMan921 on Sun Jul 25, 2004 10:59 am

THG! Yuck! Try Anandtech, they have a good Prescott Vs. Northwood comparison.

Me, I'd grab a Northwood. A bit faster, a bit cheaper, a bit cooler.

And you may want to wait until after Aug. 22; Intel will be dropping the prices of the P4's. Everything (will, high end anyway) will drop down about 1 notch (a 3.4Ghz will be the same cost as the 3.2 is now, the 3.2 will be the cost of the 3.0).

EDIT: For the OC info, head over to www.overclockers.com and look at the CPU database. It'll tell ya what everyone has gotten it up to, and with what cooling setup, plus a ton of other info.
Soon to be proud user of Mandrake 10 (again!). SuSE 9 sucks!
User avatar
BurninMan921
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 702
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2003 12:51 am
Location: MFZ (Microsoft Free Zone)

Re: Pentium 4: Northwood or Prescott?

Postby cfitz on Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:12 am

dodecahedron wrote:according to benchmarks (THG) they're more or less the same...

Really? When Prescott first came out most benchmarks showed the older Northwood had the performance edge at the same clock frequency in most scenarios. The massive pipeline of the Prescott typically worked against it, despite the Prescott's improved prediction logic and larger L2 cache. I thought the word was that Prescott wasn't going to show a real performance edge over Northwood until the clock speed got bumped up beyond what Northwood can support - the Prescott core scales better with frequency than the Northwood.

One thing there is no doubt about is that Prescott runs hotter than Northwood. How does 103 Watts vs. 82 Watts for a 3.2 grab you?

As for overclocking, I haven't been keeping up so I don't know what people are finding in actual practice, but the better scaling with frequency should help the Prescott's cause while the higher power dissipation should hurt it.

When I got my 3.0, the decision was simple: Prescott was slower, hotter and more expensive. :o Naturally, I got the Northwood.

cfitz
cfitz
CD-RW Curmudgeon
 
Posts: 4572
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 10:44 am

Postby BurninMan921 on Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:19 am

Remember cfitz, he was looking at Toms benchmarks; not the most reliable thing around :)

At think S478 mostly tops out around 3.6Ghz, no matter what core. I'm thinking of getting one of the 3.4GHz cpus after the price drop; I love the Athlon 64's (overall faster for what I want), but I miss Hyperthreading...
Soon to be proud user of Mandrake 10 (again!). SuSE 9 sucks!
User avatar
BurninMan921
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 702
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2003 12:51 am
Location: MFZ (Microsoft Free Zone)

Postby hoxlund on Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:44 am

im liking my free upgrade to prescott from northwood, im glad i made the switch
Thermaltake Core X5 Snow Edition TG Case
Corsair RM1000 Power Supply
MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
AMD Threadripper 1950x @ 4.1GHz
Custom Loop w/ EK MSI x399 Monoblock
G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 3200 RGB Memory
MSI 1080Ti Lightning X Video Card
User avatar
hoxlund
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 3708
Joined: Mon May 27, 2002 12:55 am
Location: Idaho

Postby cfitz on Sun Jul 25, 2004 1:40 pm

BurninMan921 wrote:Remember cfitz, he was looking at Toms benchmarks; not the most reliable thing around :)

LOL :lol: Okay. Message understood.

hoxlund wrote:im liking my free upgrade to prescott from northwood, im glad i made the switch

Do you have specific reasons why you like it better? Is it doing something measurably better for you? Or are you just happy to get something new for free?

cfitz
cfitz
CD-RW Curmudgeon
 
Posts: 4572
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 10:44 am

Postby hoxlund on Sun Jul 25, 2004 10:09 pm

most of it is new for free, ive noticed its faster on encoding mp3s and movies
Thermaltake Core X5 Snow Edition TG Case
Corsair RM1000 Power Supply
MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
AMD Threadripper 1950x @ 4.1GHz
Custom Loop w/ EK MSI x399 Monoblock
G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 3200 RGB Memory
MSI 1080Ti Lightning X Video Card
User avatar
hoxlund
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 3708
Joined: Mon May 27, 2002 12:55 am
Location: Idaho

Postby Shredder on Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:26 pm

I think if you are gonna get Prescott, it's probably better to get the latest Intel 9x5 chipset motherboard as it is designed to accomodate faster speed that Prescott has to offer soon.

Otherwise, getting Northwood is ok. Although Socket 478 life span will be pretty short because of the new socket, LGA775. Current Prescott generates enough heat that it makes Athlon XP, a low heat CPU.
User avatar
Shredder
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 156
Joined: Tue May 04, 2004 7:38 pm

Postby Kennyshin on Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:58 am

I looked for DDR 2 memory modules at Pricewatch.com, Danawa.co.kr and Enuri.com. They are price comparison sites.

256MB DDR-II module for nearly US$90 was the lowest price I could find. That's almost the price of 512MB Registered ECC memory module I use for Xeon 533MHz FSB systems.

DDR 2 memory availability in July 2004 is like the DDR I memory availability in late 2000. In 2001, Crucial, a Micron division, began to lower the price of 256MB DDR PC2100 modules down to US$29 per piece.

PCI Express devices are not very easy to find. The first motherboard chipset to have 4 SATA channels in addition to the usual 2 PATA channels is the 915/925 series. It wil take some time for component manufacturers like Samsung, Hitachi, Fujitsu, LG, Micron, Seagate, BTC, and so on to make better use of the new features.

Prescott processor itself is undergoing some transformation. Anandtech also recommends waiting for the next stepping.

Two motherboards have at least 8 S-ATA, IEEE 1394b, 2 10/100/1000Mbps LAN, 54Mbps wireless in addition to the standard 925X features. I'd like to have one of the two when DDR-II modules become as affordable as DDR-I. Zalman has a good cooler for Prescotts, the new all-copper 7000B with Fan-mate 2. I have a 7000 AlCu on a Northwood 2.4B, and two other Zalman CPU coolers.

http://www2.pcbee.co.kr/channel/09/read.asp?num=4449

Image
Kennyshin
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1173
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 12:56 am

Postby cfitz on Mon Jul 26, 2004 12:57 pm

hoxlund wrote:ive noticed its faster on encoding mp3s and movies

Yeah, encoding is one activity that isn't hurt by, and can even be helped by, Prescott's long pipeline. Encoding is a pretty regular operation with not much branching.

Is your Prescott the same clock speed as your Northwood was? If so, can you estimate how much percentage improvement you see when encoding?

cfitz
cfitz
CD-RW Curmudgeon
 
Posts: 4572
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 10:44 am

Postby hoxlund on Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:35 pm

yeah its the exact same speed, as you can see from my sig

its probably about 20% faster overall
Thermaltake Core X5 Snow Edition TG Case
Corsair RM1000 Power Supply
MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
AMD Threadripper 1950x @ 4.1GHz
Custom Loop w/ EK MSI x399 Monoblock
G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 3200 RGB Memory
MSI 1080Ti Lightning X Video Card
User avatar
hoxlund
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 3708
Joined: Mon May 27, 2002 12:55 am
Location: Idaho

Postby pranav81 on Thu Jul 29, 2004 6:35 am

20% makes a huge difference.


::Pranav::
Increasingly mathematics will demand the courage to face its implications.
pranav81
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1160
Joined: Thu Dec 05, 2002 6:57 am
Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Postby Kennyshin on Fri Jul 30, 2004 6:58 am

Have you tried encoding MPEG-2 HD 1920x1080 video using WMV9 codec? WMV 10 beta might perform better with Prescotts. It used to take a very long time. Right now, I'm still copying some HD .tp files to the other PC connected through 100Mbps LAN. WMV9/10 could help me a little if CPUs were a few times faster.
Kennyshin
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1173
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 12:56 am

Postby dr_st on Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:54 am

There is a number of task where the Prescott excels, such as the aforementioned encoding. Here it can really kick Northwood's ass. Unfortunately there aren't many tasks like this.

All in all, when performance is concerned, the CPUs are pretty equal at the same clock speed. And this is why Prescott excessive heat generation works against it.

I see no reason at all to use a Prescott. I had a 2.8GHz Prescott on an Intel Rocklake board. The first thing I saw when I installed Intel's drivers and utilities is "Your system is too hot". The CPU was around 60 degrees celsius when idle and could reach 70+ when under load. I admit that the case was crappy and there wasn't enough ventilation. But some of my friends who had Northwood CPUs in cases just as crappy never reached these temps. I changed to a Northwood 3.0GHz (OK, I also changed the mobo and the case in the process). Now it runs between 30 and 40, if you believe ASUS temps, and between 40 and 50, if you don't. There is a difference.
dr_st
Buffer Underrun
 
Posts: 26
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 11:09 am

Postby Kennyshin on Sun Aug 01, 2004 5:40 pm

South Korean PC case manufacturers like GMC are only happy to release new models. Same for the cooling fan manufacturers like Zalman. Zalman made a big success in the summer of 2001 when Athlon XP Thunderbird processors got the attention among many overclockers who wanted more efficient but silent cooling solutions. No more fun after that since both Intel and AMD tried hard to keep their latest CPUs running cooler.
Kennyshin
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1173
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 12:56 am

Postby pranav81 on Mon Aug 02, 2004 8:24 am

Good heatsinks make a lot of difference.A friend of mine has a 2.6 Northwood with a superb (I dont remember the name :-? ) heatsink.Believe me,when he removes the fan over the heatsink the temp. of the CPU is 52 C under heavy load.He had his friend bring it for him from Singapore.It costed him about 80 USD.


::Pranav::
Increasingly mathematics will demand the courage to face its implications.
pranav81
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1160
Joined: Thu Dec 05, 2002 6:57 am
Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Postby Kennyshin on Mon Aug 02, 2004 12:17 pm

Many all-copper heatsink + 92mm fan sets cost less than US$50 now. If it was US$80, perhaps it was Swiftec or another brand known to provide the best cooling for consumer use. I don't know whether Zalman still uses Adda fans. I'd like some more 12cm Adda fans.
Kennyshin
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1173
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 12:56 am

Postby pranav81 on Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:10 am

I have a machine with 2 case fans from Adda.The HS fan is also Adda.The machine is quite old now,but the fans are working flawlessly.I am thinking of removing case fans and installing into the machine I currently use.


::Pranav::
Increasingly mathematics will demand the courage to face its implications.
pranav81
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1160
Joined: Thu Dec 05, 2002 6:57 am
Location: Sunnyvale, CA


Return to General Hardware Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests

All Content is Copyright (c) 2001-2024 CDRLabs Inc.