Prescott vs Northwood

[dannyaa]

Northwood setup:
$220 Pentium 4c 3.2GHz
$90 Abit IS7

Prescott setup:
$220 Pentium 4 3.2GHz
$?? ????

-- What is the best mobo to get if I go prescott? I know IS7 is best for northwood, but...?
-- Do you need different RAM for prescott, or will the same RAM that works in Northwood work for Prescott?

AND finally - why would I *NOT* want to choose a Prescott over a Northwood? It seems the Prescott is all around better - 1mb L2 cache as oppossed to 512k, plus the SSE3 instructions. Are there any disadvantages to choosing Prescott, or advantages to choosing Northwood.
-----I would like to point out I will *NOT* be doing any overclocking!-----

So what I should I do, Prescott or Northwood; and if Prescott, RAM/mobo?

Thanks so much for the help!

Dan

-- Oh, is it good to have ruled out LGA775 for now? I hear it needs different, more spendy RAM and doesn't really offer any advantages right now; plus it is not a tried-and-true setup... yeah? --

 

[peteroy]

I would go for Prescott, 1MB L2 cache is bliss and it uses the same ram and mobo the northwood uses, but you will have to do bios update immediately.

Some bad motherboards can't boot with Prescott, they need northwood first for bios update and then you can put prescott on them, but those are few. It will be safe to go with ASUS or Intel motherboards which are prescott ready when you get them, still need to do bios update though.

I would also recommend using an <A HREF="http://support.intel.com/support/processors/pentium4/sb/CS-008537.htm" target="_new">Intel approved chassis with air duct</A> that chassis is recommended for 3ghz processors and will solve any heat problem and noise.

That page has a video that shows the difference between a regular chassis to air duct chassis.

===========================
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[Guest]

No need for LGA775 to expensive.
Prescott 3.2 is actually a tad slower in pretty much everything xept maybe doom 3. The extra cache is needed by the prescott to keep up with northwood.
Even with that funky looking case I expect more nois/heat from the cpu!

Bottom line is SSE3 is not used at all and wont be used for some time.

So why go with the prescott? really? no performance advantage, higher heat/noise I dont see why you would buy it.


Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, Leadtek FX5900 w/ FX5950U bios@500/1000, 2X30gig Raid0

 

[Crashman]

Recent supplies of IS7 boards should have the Prescott updates in BIOS, making them a good choice for the Prescott. But the BIOS was released "just 6 months ago", so if you got an old board by chance you might have a problem getting it to boot.

All that to the side because the Northwood is faster in most applications and produces less heat.

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[apache_lives]

Socket 775, PCIx, DDR2 and so on are all new stuff that perform like the old but cost a heap more... Id get the Northwood on Socket478, or if your in desperate need of the (not so) flashy SSE3 and 1mb L2 go with a Socket478 prescott cpu plus an ASUS P4P800 / P4C800 series board (but not the P4P800-s). The prescott generates more heat and requires bigger and more effective cooling, which also will generate a huge racket unless your happy with the 60+ degrease celsius tempratures most people suffer.

 

[Cybercraig]

I agree! If you're going for the latest chip why put it on an older board? If you want to stick with socket 478 get a Northwood!

Abit IS7 - 2.8C @ 3.4ghz - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
Samsung 120gb ATA-100 - Maxtor 40gb ATA - 100
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[RichPLS]

I'd go with the Prescott 3.2 on a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Ultra board. Cooling works with the Gigabyte 3d Cooler Pro. Memory would be 1 gig Corsair 3200XLPro. Vid an ATI x800XT.
Then your set.


========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not done!!!

 

[RichPLS]

The SSE3 of the Prescott will be utilized by a few programs now, and most soon. Cost is the same, by the Best now.


========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not done!!!

 

[trooper11]

then why not buy lg755? isnt that the best?

seriosuly, if oyu buy into a nrothwood now, youl be very happy and then if you want to upgrade say 3 years down the road or sooner, you cna upgrade to an lg755 system or whatever. buying a prescott on s478 does not give you any longer upgrade path, youl still have to buy a new mobo if you want to upgrade to a more powerful processor, and doesnt give you lots of bonuses. sse3 is about the only thing it brings that is really a bonus and its likely you wont even make use of it unless you work with video alot.

 

[endyen]

Intel had hopes for a much faster Prescott. To make it happen, they added a lot of pipelines. Pipelines may add potential speed, but hurts IPC. Intel tried to compensate with added cache. It just didn't help enough.
The odd program may get more from cache than performance, but they are few.
The one place the Prescotts shine, is as a baseboard heater. If you are looking for something to warm up a cold dorm, on a chill December night, scotty's your man.

 

[HardWareBoss]

I second what Crashman said. Do you plan on OCing your Cpu?

 

[mopeygoth]

You should have no problems running a Prescott on an IS7, even though the bios reads "Cpu unknown" and times it at 1500mhz. Make sure you have the bios upgrades and the biosupdate program ready on a disk/cd. If not? well, you can actually run the neccesary os installations with the "unknown" cpu.

I totally 2nd crashman, why pay full prize for last years tech.? SSE3 (and the additional SSE2 instructions) might not be an 'issue' just yet, but they will be, and it's a lame excuse for not buying an up-to-date+future cpu

Abit IS7 - Prescott 3GHZ@3.6ghz - i865PE - 1024mb dual ddr400 - Geforce 2 MX400 64MB - 600W dualfan(front/rear) PowerTek Psu - maxtor 4K080H4 & 6Y120P0 - samsung sm-352b

 

[trooper11]

First of all, he made it clear he wont be doing overclocking at all.

Secondly, whats so bad about the northwoods? Besides SSE3, what does prescott offer that a compareable northwood on s478 cant?

The argument that buy prescott becuase its newere is pretty lame if you ask me. People still buy ahtlon xp,s and celerons and such, buying the last generation is not a stupid idea at all. Comparing northwood to prescott its even easier to choose since northwoods perform as good and evne ebtter in some cases then the prescotts, require less cooling, and offer the same upgrade path prescotts do on s478. Id like to know why everyone thinks SSE 3 is a reason to buy into prescotts when it might not evne matter for the things he will use the pc for? How long will it take for sse 3 to be adopted by everyone? Its been out for quite sometime and still there are only a handful of video encoding apps that make use of it.

if he wants prescott, then id say save up for lg755, since that is the 'new' socket for the future right? but since lg755 is not a viable option right now, northwood and s478 will do great until lg755 is a cheaper option, then he can move to prescott.

 

[mopeygoth]

did I mention overclocking?

There is nothing wrong with a northwood (sounds like an am. car commercial ) but for rougly the exact amount of money, he can get a cpu which had additional cache and SSE registers. Why would you argue that in a future perspective? Right, if he wants it cooler/quiter, he could also buy a PIII which can actually be operated without a fan, that's how cool that is.. see where I am getting at?

besides, my Prescott is sitting at 42c on 1800rpm this very moment

Whatever he picks; I am sure he will not be disappointed

Abit IS7 - Prescott 3GHZ@3.6ghz - i865PE - 1024mb dual ddr400 - Geforce 2 MX400 64MB - 600W dualfan(front/rear) PowerTek Psu - maxtor 4K080H4 & 6Y120P0 - samsung sm-352b

 

[ChipDeath]

OK.. The one observation I will make about Scotty Vs Northwood is the amount of noise the bundled cooler makes.

I've built several P4 2.8C systems here at work, and fairly recently built a virtually identical P4 2.8E (Scotty) system, and the scotty system makes a crapload more noise, as the bundled cooler has a lot more to cope with. It's quite noticeably louder than my 2.8C system despite the fact I have 3 additional 80mm fans in mine.

If you're planning to use a third-party cooler then this isn't an issue, but the bundled NW cooler is actually very good IMO.

---
Epox 8RDA+ V1.1 w/ Custom NB HS
XP1700+ @200x10 (~2Ghz), 1.4 Vcore
2x256Mb Corsair PC3200LL/1x512Mb Corsair XMS PC4000 2.5-3-3-7
Sapphire 9800Pro (VGA Silencer Rev3) @418/742

 

[endyen]

You know what really tees me off about Scotties?
Pretty soon, mobos will start to fail. They cant take the heat, and the extra power will cause board failure.
Now I knw that the boards were speced to run with higher power requirements, but it is how and how often the board uses the higher requirements.
The mobo makers will take all the loses, but that will be reflected in the cost of our next boards. Even Amd boards will go up. Great, Intel screws you even when you buy AMD.

 

[mopeygoth]

-- Great, Intel screws you even when you buy AMD --

LOL

Abit IS7 - Prescott 3GHZ@3.6ghz - i865PE - 1024mb dual ddr400 - Geforce 2 MX400 64MB - 600W dualfan(front/rear) PowerTek Psu - maxtor 4K080H4 & 6Y120P0 - samsung sm-352b

 

[RichPLS]

So, what is the verdict? Pre-Scotty of No-thWorthy!

========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not done!!!

 

[trooper11]

no that was to the other posters

again i ask the question, will he use sse3 to any benefit? you cant answer that can you? ok so the prescott has addiitonal cahce, does that produce better performance? not if you look at nearly any review made comparing the two at same speeds. Come on, dont start trying to push bigger numbers mean better, that type of thinking is pretty outdated.

The prescott was ment as an interim to bring Intel past the speeds of the northwood and to give them time to design thier next chip. To really take advatange of prescott's strength, better scaling, you would want to buy a prescott taht is clcoked above anything on the northwood, unfortuantely intel has been slow to bring up new speed bins and even the top end models arent easy to find to buy.

i just dont see any prescott pluses for this guy's situation, and if he wont be using a 3rd party cooler, then he will have more noise/heat. al im trying to say is he misses out on nothing in his situation by goign northwood nwo and prescott later donw the road.

 

[phial]

I would go for Prescott, 1MB L2 cache is bliss

actually the only reason the Prescott has 1mb L2cache is to make up for the dratically increased latency. meaning the CPU has to sit idle while the cache becomes ready to be read/written. so to try to match the performance of the Northwood with 512k, they had to give Prescott 1mb. even so, it still doesnt perform as good as the Northwood
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[RichPLS]

So, if I buy a Prescott now, and as time passes, it will be utilized more and more by software utilizing SSE3. It also exceeds some benchmark now for video and multimedia, which will also improve. In the areas it does not surpass in the benchmarks it is only a small and intangible margin.
You get SSE3, 90nm technology, double cache, future improvement, and for the same price...
What the heck am I missing...


========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not done!!!

 

[phial]

You get SSE3

its not being utilized, and probably wont be much more due to the way its used

90nm technology

and this matters how? a 3.2ghz P4 on 130nm has the exact same processing power if it was shrunk to 90nm.

shrinking the CPU to 90nm is supposed to alot higher clock speeds, but the Prescott has leakage problems causing heat, and heat reduces how high it can clock. theres a 3.6ghz clocked prescott coming out soon, but lotsa people hit that speed with their Northwoods.

other than a *potential* increase in clock speed, .90nm offers nothing.

double cache

see my post above about why the Prescott has double cache. its needed bcause the cache itself is slower than the cache on the Northwood

future improvement

like what

and for the same price...

yea, so get a Northwood , beacuse they are the same price and overall faster (and much cooler temps)


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[RichPLS]

The cache itself is not slower, the Prescot has a longer pileline to position itself for higher clock speeds, and the Prescott does have a higher o/c potential compared to Northwood.
It boils down to preference, I would chose Prescott, you Northwood. Nothing wrong with either...


========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not done!!!

 

[phial]

the cache itself is slower

both processors have on die full speed cache, but im talking about latency. the amount of time the CPU has to wait for the cache to be ready. its like 4 times higher on the prescott

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[phial]

oh and alot of Northwoods hit 3.6ghz +

most prescotts cant hit much higher beacuse of their heat output (like 65c stock)

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