Intel P4 vs AMD

Thanks on the info for the power supply. I came in at 390. It was interesting to see though that a 3.06 intel/533fsb drew more power then the 3.2 prescott i have. i was more interested in the fact that I am using a ultra product vs other power supplies in the same watt range. Thanks.

 

You're welcome. Possibly tomorrow sophocles or one of the others may discuss the OCing with you. He will be up early ET and has a day job. You alienated some others with your initial outburst and as Donald mentioned, some think you still owe an apology for your attack on the forum and its members. Donald would be another good source of info. I help as I can, but I'm not yet in the same class as those 2. On performance systems, I defer to their judgment.

As to memory, many custom enthusiasts like the XMX Corsair performance memory and/or the OCZ memory. Mushkin has turned in some good tests in comparison to the brands mentioned. That was for performance RAM. Your telling us you have "1gig mushkin extreme ram" didn't tell us much except the amount of total RAM and it's the extreme variety. You need to be more specific. Is it 2x512, 4x256, 1x1GB? You can look at the vendors to see how it is listed. Here's what I have in my system. CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model Twinx2048-3200c2 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145574 That shows most all there is to it, (speed, configuration, CAS latency, series) and if any questions, another member can look it up quickly with the link I supplied. When talking components, you need to give as much info as possible. You're familiar with what you have. We've never seen it.

 

One thing to remember about Power supplies is that the cheaper ones will provide less than their states figure, and the expensive ones more. I can't speak for Ultraconnect but some 450W power supplies don't output more than 400, whereas others may go up to 530.
That's an interesting second system there Ozzy! The parts seem to be a little mismatched. Ok, the DVD writer is obviously a later addition, but you state an 800mhz CPU, a 2MB vid card and a 7GB hard disk. My first PC had a 450mhz CPU but an 8MB vid card and a 13GB hard disk. Oh well!

 

baltekmi

Considering the card you have 5380 is a good score for 3dmark 05, it scores lower than its predecessors. If your board has decent over clock features you should be able to get at least another 200 mhz out of it because you have reasonable good quality memory and Abit boards generally include good over clocking features. If you can lock your PCI bus to 33 MHz and then slowly raise your fronts side bus from 200 in small increments. After the first few increments all that you're doing is looking for it to boot up and monitoring temperature increases. You might need to invest in a good quality after market heat sink and fan if you want to push it a little further but there's no reason why you can reach 3.2 Ghz and even 3.4 is more than possible. Power supplies are responsible for a lot of unstable systems and failed over clocks. My recommended minimum is 450 watts by a reputable maker. Many are measured for maximum output but you should be looking for one that measured under full load.

 

Stability of the power source is an issue as well. That's why you want to follow Sophocles' advice and stick with the ones having a good reputation. (I'm not saying no-name items aren't good, just unknown and there are bad ones.) Spikes in the power can cause problems as well as the inability to meet amperage requirements.

 

Yes very interesting system sammorris. I recieved it in payment for fixing my ex bosses computer. He gave it to me in pieces with no vid card. So I had the 2 meg card laying round and through it in. Then I hooked the dvd write via usb for writing discs. The 800 is merely a back up and a tool. Its perfect for formatting hard drives...testing memory....what ever. I got a ide to sata adapter for like 3 bucks off ebay and it will even test sata hard drive. So its perfect if a customer comes over and tells me their hard drive is fragged. So then I can hook it up and test it without ripping my good one apart. Or test some component of their system. A lot of my customers love the old 800 pentium 3 and amd athlon t birds and whatnot/

 

Again thanks for the help!!! AGAIN I AM ALSO SORRY FOR THOSE I HAVE OFFENDED. Now i hope we are past that.
ok memeory i have is
Muskin 184 pin 1 gig 2x512 xp3200 400 mgz latency 222. cooling solution: thermal take pipe101 with vantec 92mm TORNADO fan running at 4800 rpm.
So the vid card i have 6800 ultra could be better?
Sophocles, I tried what you said to do to overclock. But again when i did that for some reason it shuts down the sata(which I have my os on). and only sees the parallel port. (no os) It boots up fine and updates, but then I have a error loading os. any help would be appriciated.

 

Hopefully the Donald, Sophocles, or someone can help you out. OCing isn't my forte.

 

baltekmi,
The SATA problem is related to overclocking the SATA controller.
Did you find the place in BIOS to lock the PCI bus?
Oddly even with the PCI bus lock, some chipsets don't lock the SATA controller. The NF4 chipset based boards like Sophocles and mine can use SATA at a high OC. There is a P4 board with NF4 on it.

You can get an inexpensive SATA card for PCI on newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815124020
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816102060

That would bypass the problem once youre sure the PCI bus is locked.

All this may sound more technical than it is. The problem is simple to fix but sometimes the PCI lock is not so easy to find and maybe labeled differently. It should be in the same area as the OCing features but not always.

In the mean time keep the OC to about 10%.

BTW your video card is fine. There are always cards that are bigger, faster and more expensive if you desired. But chasing the latest technology gets pricey.

 

Thanks for the help with the oc issue. I underdstand what you are saying and trying to find the right combination will be the challange. i found where it says pci bus is locked, but as soon as i change the value from 200 to lets say 205, it comes back with 3 diffiefert numbers 210/? /35. 35 being the pci bus gets bumped up, but shows locked in another line. i do feel more confident to try more things thanks. yes, asfor as to the vid card/ new today slow tomorrow.

 

Baltekmi,
Appology accepted and thanks. I'm sorry I was a little bit hard on you. I guess sometimes that I tend to get a little over the top but this forum has done so much for me that I took it as an attack on it. These folks are the best and they will help anybody anytime.

All,
As most of you know I am working on a build for early summer. I have had someone express interest in my present P4 (see my sig). It will be sold with the stock Intel cooler, OC'd to 3.15 and no DVD Burner. It's in a 10 bay window case. I would be interested in seeing what you all think I should get for it. My mind has it around $1000 (USD). It's a good quality machine with excellent performance. Much better than the Dell 3000 3.0 it replaced. Let me know what you think.

Thanking you in advance,
theonejrs

 

Yeah but ya better sell it quick. With the new stuff coming out in summer it wont be worth as much by then. Unless ya find a newb or fish on ebay that doesnt know his arse from a hole in the ground.:>

 

Don't sell the P4. Everyone needs a good backup machine next to your primary.
I can't deal with just one machine. To much to do, too little time.

 

To Sophocles,
I got my Corsair XMS Cas2 memory today and installed it. What do I do now?

theonejrs

 

Can I copy my os my pata drive from my serial drive?

 

You can install a new operating system on the PATA for a dual boot system. Then you can delete the one on ATA if you want. Just copying won't give you the registry entries you need unless you're doing a Ghost backup and that doesn't sound like what you're wanting.

 

baltekmi
You can use system restore after installing a new OS.
Partition magic or ghosting can be a little tricky if you have not done it before.

 

I didn't know you guys could offer things for sale on here. Shoot I would have been ask if someone has a AMD Opteron or 939 socket San Diego Core chip for sale if they are willing to sale at a reasonable price. But you question about selling your system for $1000, I wouldn't pay no where near that much for 800fsb cpu on a 865chipset mobo and only a stock fan. But I am sure some dummy will purchase it for that price not realizing they could buy a similar spec for 200 dollars less or even lower

 

Start playing with the settings and remmeber not to sell it when you build your new system. It should allow you to play with timings. Try 2-3-2-6 to start with.

 

I really lke AMD chips to install there fans kick ass over those intl click on things