2.4b vs 2.8c

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vcv1122

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Sep 20, 2003
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Is there any point in upgrading a 2.4b (533 fsb) to a 2.8c (800 fsb)? Figuring the cost of such an upgrade to about $100.00 (2.8 cost $175.00 - selling 2.4 for $75.00) would enough of a performance increase justify cost. System is used for games, tv/video and word. Thanks for any opinions.


P4 2.4b (oc to 3 ghz)
Is7
2x256mb Mushkin pc2700
GeForce 6600gt (just upgraded)
Seagate 7200
TV wonder pro
Audigy 2zs
Thermaltake 480 w
NEC 21' crt
 
what kind of system cooling do you have?

with good cooling you can push a 2.8c easily to 3.6~ range.

<A HREF="http://www.cameronwilliamson.com/nutshell.mp3" target="_new">"Like a scrotum, there it is in a nutshell."</A>
<font color=red>Roll Tide!</font color=red>
<A HREF="http://www.cameronwilliamson.com" target="_new">-={Apathetic As<i></i>shole.}=-</A>
 
To really take advantage of the 2.8C you'd need DDR400/ PC3200 RAM. Plus 512Mb is actually not that much for a modern gaming rig.

It'll cost, but getting 1Gb of PC3200 in dual channel mode and the new CPU would probably give you a noticeable boost. Even faster RAM and overclocking would give a larger boost still.

You don't say what games you're trying to play, but many newer ones would see a much larger improvement if you simply increased your RAM to 1Gb, than if you do just the proposed CPU swap.

On the plus side, you have a good motherboard. It may be worth trying to overclock your current CPU. In fact, in your situation I would probably get 1Gb of RAM (of PC3200 or better), and try overclocking the CPU a bit. You'll still be able to use the RAM again if that's not enough of a boost, and you should be able to get performance up quite a bit, as you'll be running the RAM and mobo under their (official) ceilings by quite some margin, so will only have to worry about the CPU.

If we know what games you're looking for an increase in (I assume that's why you're posting) then we'd see what we're dealing with better...

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Thank for the responses. The games my son plays the most on this system are Warcraft and Farcry. I currently have the cpu over clocked to 3 Ghz, on air (Thermaltake heatsink) running a 5.4 (or 3.2..Can't remember) divider on ram. Seems to be a cieling for this cpu. Do you think ram over cpu smarter upgrade?
 
Well the CPU will be starved by the ram so upgrading just the CPU should'nt be the best way to go. If you cana fford it you can make the upgrade two-fold.
By another 512meg of DDR400 and then later get a P4C...

Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, MSI 6800Ultra stock, 2X30gig Raid0
 
I think more RAM will help most. You'll not really benifit from the greater bus speed of the P4C as your RAM will still be feeding it at the same rate, if you stick with what you have. Obviously more, faster RAM AND a new CPU would be the ideal solution, but I think given the choice the extra RAM would help the most.

a 3Ghz P4B is still fairly quick by today's standards, although of course it's running on a slower bus, so wouldn't quite match a P4C, but would be fairly decent.

If your games (such as far cry) seem to run smoothly for a couple of seconds, then jerk around a bit, then smooth, then jerky, etc, then that's your problem - it can't hold enough in available RAM for smooth play, so keeps jumping back to the disk all the time.

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would his IS7 still be happy in Dual Channel with 2x256 and 1x512Mb? Plus if he then gets a P4C later he'll still need to get rid of the PC2700, or getting PC3200 now would be useless...

I know the Nforce2 AMD chipset would run with 2 sticks in one channel and one in the other (assuming you had the same quantity in each channel), but of course all those boards only had 3 slots so I guess they had to.... but don't know about i865. Anyone?

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As I understand it (I have no direct experience however), Intel dual channel needs the same amount of RAM in each channel - I mean 2x256, 2x512, etc. - to utilize dual channel. I can see it possibly working with 2x256 in 1 channel and 1x512 in the other, but I haven't heard one way or another.

Mike.

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-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>
 
It's always seemed a bit less fussy than the AMD implementations, but even so my old Nforce2 system was running like that (albeit with crappy timings).

I know my winchester A64 would never do that though, which is why I'm curious. I couldn't get it to run DC with 2x PC4000 sticks even if running them at PC3200 speeds with extremely lax timings.

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Thanks again for the feedback. Sounds like ram is the call. If I were going to upgrade both cpu and ram, the decision would then become whether to spend the extra couple hundred dollars (cpu $150, board $125 and PCIE graphics card $125.00), and just build an Amd64 system. Either way, the starting point seems to be ram. I know this isn't the proper forum...but what would reccomendations be for new, overclocking ram (with the idea of using on an AMD system in the future)?
 
you DEFINATELY want 1 gig of ram for Warcraft. THAT is your bottleneck. Your cpu, overclocked to 3ghz, is more than fast enough. the video card is more than fast enough. world of warcraft suffers on anything less than 1 gig. trust me!

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<b>It's a man's obligation to stick his boneration in a women's separation; this sort of penetration will increase the population of the younger generation.</b>
 
Only just noticed I became an 'Eternal poster' in this thread. I need to get out more 😱

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Just so you know, the 865 does require matched pairs to work in dual channel.
Why are you using a divider now? Set at 1/1 your fsb would be @ 166, when your chip is running @ 3ghz. How may slots do you have free?
Something like patriot pc3200 would be fine for your current chip, but would not cut it for OCing a P4c (well maybe to 225 fsb)
 
Appreciate the input. I'm currently using a divider since it was the only way I could get past 2.8 ghz without xp acting unstable. It could be I have a bios setting messed up (will look when more time available). Question, I do have an AMD 64 system running 2x512 mb (matched set)Patriot pc3200 xblk. Since I'm also interested in faster ram for that system, would my existing pdp be a good match for the 2.4b ?
 
The patriot should work fine, though a test never hurt. Unfortunately, if your old pc2700 wont run @ 166 fsb, you would still need more ram, to have a reasonable amount, without the divider. You take a heavy hit, when using a divider with Intel chips
 
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