I've finally upgraded my PC 😀 A mostly positive experience but a post here to aid anyone facing the same challenges!

I really don't get on with excessive noise or heat. It's a vicious circle but there are ways to minimise both. You could invest [heavily] in custom cooling solutions or you could go another route altogether...

The heart of my new PC is a Pentium M760 (that's a Pentium designed for the mobile market) and is a 2Ghz 533Mhz FSB part. The interesting bit is that it's running in an Intel 875 chipset equipped desktop PC motherboard! The magic comes from ASUS who a few months back gave the world an adaptor called the CT-479. What does it do? Well, it contains the necessary circuitry to convert a Pentium M chip into a standard socket 478 CPU (Pentium 4). Cool eh 😀

The benefits of this are speed/watt. Power consumption on the CPU is well under half that of a 3.2Ghz P4 with speed about the same. Drawbacks at this time are its high cost with the CPU and adaptor probably adding £150 on to the bill.

Anyways, some pitfalls to look out for:

1. It's documented that only some, ASUS only, motherboards support the adaptor. What they [ASUS] don't say is that even if a board is supported, it may be at a BETA level and perhaps not suited for those who expect things to just work.
2. In my case the motherboard, an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe, was purchased specifically for the upgrade. Consider this though, the adaptor will not work unless the BIOS is at a minimum version and if it's not the motherboard will not even POST thus giving no possibility to update the BIOS image. If you're in a situation like me, a 'spare' P4 is needed to get this step done!
3. BETA level BIOS's aren't necessarily stable and fit for external usage... The minimum revision of BIOS for my motherboard, allowed the PC to boot but complained each and every time that the CPU voltage was out of range - very worrying indeed! The latest BETA version (available from ASUS.DE's FTP site and not advertised anyway incidentally) sorted out that error but left the CPU multiplier locked at 6x with no option given to change it! So a 2Ghz Pentium M was locked at 800Mhz - not much of an upgrade!
4. Solution to the CPU multiplier is to obtain a tool that can adjust the CPU's multiplier value whilst Windows is running. The tools is called eist.exe but cannot be found on the web using a Google search. Obviously after reboot the multiplier is reset back to 6x. This is OK as a temporary measure but it isn't what you'd expect to have to do after spending a considerable amount of cash!

Paired with a AGP GF6600GT and 2GB of DDR RAM the system has provided some good benchmark scores with little noise (except for the fan on the 6600!). I think it's a great choice and has good application with developers, media centre systems or event the non hardcore gamers. The CPUs are also capable of being overclocked quite a bit so it should even keep the system tweaking crowd happy!

It's a shame that there aren't more choices for the noise/power conscious rather than just the standard/varied options for custom cooling. Removing the need to cool is a much better idea! However it's expensive and not everyone is willing/able to pay a premium for this as a 'feature' (although most would spend the same amount but on more processing power instead!).

Good luck all!

Kit: Pentium M760, ASUS CT-479, ASUS P4C800-E, 2GB Crucial PC3200 RAM. Will see what DOS games are now playable under DOSBOX 😀