Intel P4 vs AMD

Theonejrs

Any high quality after market heat sink and fan can be a bit of a risk depending on your boards layout. 3.73 Ghz is a little high for that CPU and there's a strong chance that another heat sink and fan isn't going to resolve it. Prescott's are notorious for running hot under full load and one that's over clock by almost 20% is definitely pushing things. Take it down to about 3.6 and then try running an encoder or transcoder and see if it will complete. DVD Shrink is excellent for quick testing a CPU.

 

The problem is, your memory may accept an overclock at that level, but not let you run any major programs. Consequently, until a proper heatsink is fitted, we won't know. Fit the HS anyway since the CPU must be running hot to cause that temperature from a 20% overclock, but I can't guarantee any success above 10% after you have.

 

Theonejrs
Another thing to note is the installation kit and how it mounts up. Be sure to make sure the Zalman will attach to your board properly. Besides that, Donald brought up a good point; it's sizable, so be sure you have the open space in the case for it. Then when you build later, you'll have to take the same into account. Zalman also makes systems that are less extravagant.

 

I could be wrong but I think that you've got your CPU clocked too high. A 10% to 12% is more realistic, 20% for a Prescott is too much. Your system is probably crashing because your temps are rising too high.

 

I think that was the jist of his posts, but I reckon stability might have an issue as well, dependant upon memory brand and quality.

 

Sammorris

The "jist" of his post was he went into a lengthy description of what he was doing and planning which obscured his only question,

As for the question, that was answered in short order. You can't tell from an unstable setup. Plus the theonejrs may have mentioned what memory he was using, but I dare not try to sift through mrpsych's posts to try to find it. I'm curious as to what he has in the line of RAM. If he forgot or doesn't know, Sandra will list it for him.

Other than that one question, the rest of us have merely been commenting on what he's done and is planning. I think most of us see the Prescott as one of Intel's lesser successes. The chip isn't a good choice for OCing to begin with. Sophocles is right, 10% with air cooling is about as far as one wants to go with this "hotbox" CPU. I don't think it's worth the liquid nitogen treatment. So, if theonejrs can get the 3.0 Prescott stable at 3.4GHz, I'd suggest he should be happy and leave it alone.

The warnings on the CPU cooler system were just some common sense items to remember when adding accessories. Some times we get carried away with what we'd like and don't do enough research to insure success or long term success. He has to remember that monster of a cooler is going to be hanging on his board and taking up a lot of space. Seems what he should be interested in is not only how it will affect his current setup but the one he is planning (since his intent is to reuse it). That means he has to commit to a board and case with enough space to accomodate his "cooler" without interfering with components and expansion slots.

 

sammorris


I should have also said processor stability. He could underclock his memory by dropping the settings to CAS4 or dropping the memory speeds below 200 (166 quad pumped eqauls 664 Mhz)Mhz or both. Even high quality memory won't stabalize a processor that is pushed beyond it's maximum. At this point one would start increasing the CPU voltage to try and stabalize the CPU but since it's being pushed too high already it's going to overheat no matter how good the air cooling is. With water cooling he might be able to sustain the heat. If it's booting and running under lite loads then he should be able to lower it a couple of minor settings. I think that he should be able to reach 3.5 to around 3.6 with 3.5 being more likely.

 

Well, the RAM showed up this evening. The processor is due tomorrow. So, I'll be running some memory tests on the "old clunker" this evening. With benches and an encode with RB/CCE, I'll be several hours on this portion. It'll be late tonight or tomorrow before I get to post anything. It'll be interesting to see what good memory and an extra GB of it will do (2GB total PC3200C2).

 

Memory might make a bit of difference but encoding is so CPU dependent that I wouldn't expect any large gains. Still you'll notice a lot of other things moving faster since 2 gigs of CAS2 is not only faster but it will reduce paging file swapping to almost null. Now when you pop in the 3.4 Northwood and that along with more and faster RAM, you're going to see some significant speed increases. Good Luck!

 

Brobear, does your desk chair have seatbelts? <G>

Good luck!


theonejrs
On the P4 settings, I seem to believe that a real stable enviroment is usually around 115%-120% and I bet that Prescott would be better suited at the 115% range or 3.45

I wonder what they would say if I rode my H-D down the sidewalk?!?!? <G>

 

To all,

Thank you for all the responses. I am running PNY Optima 1Gb x 2 PC3200 memory. I can run the prescott at 3.50 and it runs stable. I just don't like the temps topping out during encoding at 68C. The default setting on my MB is 70C. Anything over that will shut down the computer. I do also realize that by stability you also mean heat. The computer doesn't crash or tie itself in knots when running programs but just shuts down to prevent damage to the CPU.

As far as the Zalman 9500 goes, I know I have the room for it because I measured it. I will have more than the minimum clearence required. From what I see with the Asus SLI MB, there should be about the same amount of room as my new case will be the same model as I have now, only black. The push-me-pull-me arangement of the two fans will blow the air right into a Thermatake 120mm case fan exhausting out. The lower power supply 120mm fan will sit right above the cooler so if the heat transfer is decent then the 3 fans should remove a lot more heat than it does now with the stock Intel cooler. Since I have never seen case temps over 34C, I have to conclude that the Zalman should make a reasonable difference in CPU temps.

Sincerely,
theonejrs

 

When I said unstable CPU, I meant that at a point even if you're using liquid nitrogen and your temps are way below zero under full load it can still reach a point where it becomes unstable.

Before you purchase your fan review this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835128009

Compare online.

 

Scubabud

The way they're tightening the law on bikers, they probably would have the local constabulary after your hide. LOL But I see where you're coming from. I've been thinking a new Harley, but my Honda V-Twin retro looks more like a Harley than some of Harley's new bikes do. Nobody seems to laugh much when they see a bunch of grizzled old bikers going by. As soon as I get some extra dollars alloted for big toys, I may still get the HD.

Sophocles,
You're right about the speed. In the real world of encoding, it made no difference with RB/CCE. However, the CPU isn't maxed out and I can surf the web normally while doing the encode. I've got about five windows up and all is going well. Before I had problems similar to a phone modem with me on DSL, slow pages and jerky operation. Before, I didn't dare do anything while encoding and that was with 1GB of RAM. The CPU was normally maxed out. Now it's running between 70-80% load on the CPU. More than enough overhead for me to do many things. With the new processor, if all works well, I should see some improvement in time along with the multi-tasking abilities I'm now enjoying.

Scubabud
No seatbelts, but the arms on the deskchair should hold me in. I can find a tie down if necessary. LOL It's an "old clunker", I don't have too much to fear. Hopefully, it will be noticably faster though.

 

dont know whether or nots its already been mentioned but it seems that intel messed up when making the P4 cause it can be overclocked to over 5.0GHz... wow.. i forget where i read how it was done though just search in google i guess,,,

 

A Northwood no doubt. THG OCed a P4 to 5Ghz,but the fastest stable speed they could reach was only about 4.3. bearing mind the equivalent rating of CPUs nowadays is around that, that wasn't that much of an achievement.Theonejrs, if your case tmeps are low and your cpu temps are high, then a decent HS will solve everything, ASSUMING it fits without much trouble.

 

sorry am just relaying what i read, i have no idea about OC'ing... they cooled it with liquid nitrogen, honest and it reached above 5 GHz and i am not fibbing, i saw benchmarking results for it...

 

No, they overclocked it to Ghz and were able to run it, but the benchmarks themselves ran at a lower speed. A CPU-Z window of the speed isn't a benchmark, it's a status. Benchmarks are programs like SiSoft Sandra which give figures for the overall performance of a CPU.

 

thats what i mean, after overclocking it they benchmarked it to compare against other processors...

 

yes, but NOT at 5Ghz, at about 4.3, benchmarks won't run at 5Ghz, the CPU just won't run stable enough.

 

just so that i could end this argument i spent the last half hour searching for where i saw it:
http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/cpu/intel/p4/2.4c/index.htm