Intel P4 vs AMD

Sammorris

Actually it makes as much sense as OC(ing) any other processor. If it's OC(able) then there are still performance gains to be had. And Intel didn't appear to make all their CPUs equal. The 3.4 N I have has some differences from the 2.8 N. Maybe Sophocles can shed some light on the Northwoods as he has one. The pin side of the processor has what looks to be transistors on the outer surface. The 3.4 has more of those than the 2.8. I'm not sure what's going on there. But back to OC(ing), besides the performance, the biggest reason is just because we can.

The Northwoods are no big problem as far as heat is concerned. Setting a 3.4 to about 3.8GHz is barely over 10%. No need to even up the cooling if a person already has a good heatsink and fan. ScubaBud has already shown that. I'm just waiting for theonejrs to start seeing where he can push one with his test setup. He was wondering where he could get one and I pointed out a cheap vendor. He already has the big Zalman cooler to help keep the temps under control. I'm wondering if 20% would be pushing a 3.4 too far on air (4.08GHz). Scubabud said his was stable at 15% (3.91GHz).

 

I'm betting that the FX60 can't get much higher than 2.75 and if that, because it's closer to the cores maximum already. The FX60 is using the Toledo core but I'm betting that it was binned to Opteron standards. Many believe that the reason that AMD is discontinuing the 939 Opterons is because they're affecting the X2 and ultimately the FX60 sales.

 

ScubaBud,
What RAM are you using with your 3.4 Northwood system?

 

@ Brobear

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820144111

Kingston HyperX 256MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory X 4 sticks.

 

It's C2 with good timing. I'm just wondering if more would help. Something along the lines of the CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200 C2) Dual Channel Kit System Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145575

 

I'm sure it would but no more money will be spent on this system. Below was a Sandra memory test a while back:

 

Kingston is ok as long as you don't push it to far and it seems to be doing Okay with scuba's system..

My tastes usually have me running OCZ or Corsair.

 

I can forsee OCing an FX60 far being difficult, they're the top end CPUs. If they could all comfortably achieve a higher clock rate on air cooling, AMD would do so and market the FX62 now. Anyway, we malign the Prescott core for running hot, but isn't the Gallatin the worst offender?

 

http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=498&page=5

This article took the FX60 to 3.2 stable. Other articles that I've read took it to 2.9 stable very easily. Each using different memory and different motherboards. All using the stock heatsink and fan.

 

It's advantage is in it's clock multiplier, I'll have to read more of the review before forming a conclusion but if you notice, the HT is only 230 to get to 2.9 GHz. Mine is at 267 times 10 to get to 267 Mhz. If I multiplied 267 times his clock multiplier 0f 13.5 I would be hitting 3.6 ghz. I'm a little suspicious of the highend numbers such as 3.2 ghz as being completely stable but I'm always open to possibilities and always open to faster machines but within reason (sometimes).

 

So far the only thing I ordered was the WD 150 Raptor. I'll use it in this machine for now. After reading more it seems that DDR2 might be on the horizon real soon for AMD.

 

DDR2 is basically a hand-in-hand with Socket AM2 which is coming out in summer, around the time I planned to get the new computer. Hmmmm. I can't help but wonder if it might be worth waiting for that.

 

@sammorris

I tend to agree now. Doing another Sandra test on my PC shows I'm currently near the same or better than an FX57 single core. It's the double core's that can eat my lunch in the Dhrystone test but the not necessarily so in the Whetstone test. I am going to hold off, (once again,) until I see which way AMD goes with DDR2 or as one article said, maybe even DDR3. Either way motherboard changes and more then likely socket changes will follow so I don’t want to make the same mistake I did when the Pentium Pro came out, then 6 months later they were obsolete! Back then with SCSI drives it was a bargain at nearly $5,000. Not to mention adding a Barracuda SCSI 9 gig for a mere $2,200.

 

See this is difficult for me to imagine as the oldest computer I really got to know in detail was only 6 years ago, so relatively modern technology - It came with a 13GB ATA100 (i think it was, possibly 66) hard disk as standard, which was quite reasonable.

 

scubabud

Here is my single core AMD 3500+ overclocked, note the FX57.






Now imagine what an FX57 can do in the right hands. LOL

 

LOL Just think what an antique 3.4GHz Northwood would do in the right hands. Hey theonejrs... He's already got the board to put one on.



Funny, an old stock Intel hanging in there with the top AMD FX processors.

 

Hmmm, I've noticed a distinct trend of Intel's whetstone results being a lot higher though, presumably this would be due to the higher core speed?

 

Hard to really make a comparison along those lines. Note the Whetstone MFLOPS figure for the Northwood at 7260 and the P4-E 550 at the same speed at 4194 (3066 difference). The Northwood had the highest of the processors compared and the 550 the lowest. The Northwood even scored 1133 higher on the arithmetic instructions over the 550. I suspect the more and better RAM I use may be part of the difference, but it shouldn't be that great.

 

Interestingly enough the 3.4 Northwood performs slightly better than the 3.8GHz P4 570 on arithmetic and blows it out of the water on the MFLOPS score.



Tends to support the fact that Intel went the wrong way in their quest for higher speed processors.

 

Lol without question, that's fairly conclusive!