i'll get the 3.4c with no doubt, prescott has no advantage over northwood at all.

I second the Northwood.

The 3.4C Northwood gets my vote as well.

Northwood, no doubt 😀

alright ill go northwood

candle_86 wrote:

alright ill go northwood

You will not regret it.

The Northwood 3.4 beats even the Prescott 3.4 when it comes to gaming although its only using half the amount of electricity and runs 20 degrees C cooler. When people think of the Pentium 4 as useless, slow and hot running its usually not the 800 MHz FSB Northwoods they are thinking of.

I agree as well. I will mention though that I've seen the Prescott outperform the Northwood in h264 decoding. I don't know if that's because of cache or if it was utilizing SSE3. It isn't worth the heat though and the Northwood is generally faster at anything else, and in this case the Northwood is higher clocked anyway.

candle_86 wrote:

alright ill go northwood

Northwood for life. 😎 Prescott chips literally creep me out because of what they can do to certain systems. I have a 3.2GHz Prescott that came with an HP D530 system. I swear, that thing never worked right with the Prescott. The moment I put a ~2.6GHz 800FSB Northwood in it, the system suddenly turned stable. I later decided to put the Prescott in a Dell OptiPlex GX270 SFF system I have. IIRC, the Dell was actively trying to downclock the Prescott chip, almost as if it knew how crazy hot those things can get. Even if those systems worked properly with that Prescott chip, the performance just wouldn't match an equivalent Northwood chip.

There was a time when I would kill for a 3.4C. 😀

My experience with s478 Prescotts was short-lived. I too was misled by the 1MB vs 512KB cache thing (which in practice had no advantage on average) and got a 2.8E. It ran so hot and the fan was so loud, that I replaced it with a 3.0C before 2 weeks were up.

Still have that 3.0C (the system was assembled almost 11 years ago). The motherboard was changed twice, and now it's barely used so I expect it can live for quite a few years.

Agreed for the Northwood, especially for older games. It will do good. The Prescott's SSE3 won't really be a factor for older games, but I've seen advantages materialize with Prescott (or other, newer CPUs with SSE3, like P4 Cedar Mill or Core 2) in some newer games (like 2007+). If you need SSE3, I'd still probably skip Prescott and go with something newer. Depending on the specific game, multi-core will probably be a benefit too, so Core 2 is an easy suggestion there.

On the extra cache, the Gallatin-based Extreme Edition, which is based on Northwood but has extra L3 cache (512k L2 + 2MB L3) actually does show performance advantages over Northwood chips for some games and other applications. Quake 3 is an example:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2003/09/23/ath … _vs_pentium_4/5

By contrast, here's Prescott v Northwood v Gallatin:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1419/4

Here's another example of Prescott v Northwood, showing clock scaling, and with older games:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p4-northw … on-4,809-8.html

And even more, with another EE on the table:
http://hothardware.com/reviews/Intel-Prescott … P4-34GHz?page=5

Remember though: this isn't comparing a 3.4C and 3.4E, or 3.2C and 3.2E, this is comparing a 3.4C and 2.8E. The 3.4C will likely be faster in most things, simply due to being clocked higher. If you were being offered a 3.4E and 3.4C, or 2.8E and 2.8C, I'd probably say flip a coin. But since the Northwood is also the faster chip, go for it.

Sutekh94 wrote:

IIRC, the Dell was actively trying to downclock the Prescott chip, almost as if it knew how crazy hot those things can get. Even if those systems worked properly with that Prescott chip, the performance just wouldn't match an equivalent Northwood chip.

No curse, nothing creepy, etc. Prescott supports SpeedStep and will clock itself down (like any modern CPU) when it isn't under heavy load, or to improve cooling if it's overheating. A lot of older thick-client SFF machines shipped with 478/939 CPUs that they really weren't equipped to cool (~90W+ TDP chips), so the CPU usually ends up pretty aggressively throttled when put under load. Dell and HP were probably the absolute worst about this ca. ~2004-2007, and I think it's mostly those machines that end up perpetuating the stereotype of Pentium 4 as "awful."

obobskivich wrote:

Agreed for the Northwood, especially for older games. It will do good. The Prescott's SSE3 won't really be a factor for older ga […]
Show full quote

Agreed for the Northwood, especially for older games. It will do good. The Prescott's SSE3 won't really be a factor for older games, but I've seen advantages materialize with Prescott (or other, newer CPUs with SSE3, like P4 Cedar Mill or Core 2) in some newer games (like 2007+). If you need SSE3, I'd still probably skip Prescott and go with something newer. Depending on the specific game, multi-core will probably be a benefit too, so Core 2 is an easy suggestion there.

On the extra cache, the Gallatin-based Extreme Edition, which is based on Northwood but has extra L3 cache (512k L2 + 2MB L3) actually does show performance advantages over Northwood chips for some games and other applications. Quake 3 is an example:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2003/09/23/ath … _vs_pentium_4/5

By contrast, here's Prescott v Northwood v Gallatin:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1419/4

Here's another example of Prescott v Northwood, showing clock scaling, and with older games:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p4-northw … on-4,809-8.html

And even more, with another EE on the table:
http://hothardware.com/reviews/Intel-Prescott … P4-34GHz?page=5

Remember though: this isn't comparing a 3.4C and 3.4E, or 3.2C and 3.2E, this is comparing a 3.4C and 2.8E. The 3.4C will likely be faster in most things, simply due to being clocked higher. If you were being offered a 3.4E and 3.4C, or 2.8E and 2.8C, I'd probably say flip a coin. But since the Northwood is also the faster chip, go for it.

Sutekh94 wrote:

IIRC, the Dell was actively trying to downclock the Prescott chip, almost as if it knew how crazy hot those things can get. Even if those systems worked properly with that Prescott chip, the performance just wouldn't match an equivalent Northwood chip.

No curse, nothing creepy, etc. Prescott supports SpeedStep and will clock itself down (like any modern CPU) when it isn't under heavy load, or to improve cooling if it's overheating. A lot of older thick-client SFF machines shipped with 478/939 CPUs that they really weren't equipped to cool (~90W+ TDP chips), so the CPU usually ends up pretty aggressively throttled when put under load. Dell and HP were probably the absolute worst about this ca. ~2004-2007, and I think it's mostly those machines that end up perpetuating the stereotype of Pentium 4 as "awful."

well I was an AMD guy back in the P4 days, Intel got above water for a very short time with the 800mhz northwood before AMD pushed it back under with a hammer 🤣. But because I already have a really nice Abit IC7-G I see no reason not to use a P4.

obobskivich wrote:

Sutekh94 wrote:

IIRC, the Dell was actively trying to downclock the Prescott chip, almost as if it knew how crazy hot those things can get. Even if those systems worked properly with that Prescott chip, the performance just wouldn't match an equivalent Northwood chip.

No curse, nothing creepy, etc. Prescott supports SpeedStep and will clock itself down (like any modern CPU) when it isn't under heavy load, or to improve cooling if it's overheating. A lot of older thick-client SFF machines shipped with 478/939 CPUs that they really weren't equipped to cool (~90W+ TDP chips), so the CPU usually ends up pretty aggressively throttled when put under load. Dell and HP were probably the absolute worst about this ca. ~2004-2007, and I think it's mostly those machines that end up perpetuating the stereotype of Pentium 4 as "awful."

Well, in any case, I'm glad I stuck with AMD during the time period when P4 stuff was everywhere, right up until I got my Q6600-based rig around late 2010. No reason to use a P4 of any kind when you have a Barton Athlon XP 3200+ trailblazing the way ahead.

EDIT: see below posts

obobskivich wrote:

Prescott supports SpeedStep and will clock itself down (like any modern CPU) when it isn't under heavy load, or to improve cooling if it's overheating.

I think only the LGA775 Prescotts do.

dr_st wrote:

obobskivich wrote:

Prescott supports SpeedStep and will clock itself down (like any modern CPU) when it isn't under heavy load, or to improve cooling if it's overheating.

I think only the LGA775 Prescotts do.

You are correct. After a little bit of digging on CPU World, I can confirm that the 478 Prescotts do not support SpeedStep. Matter of fact, I'm not even sure if any 478-based P4 supports SpeedStep.

Sutekh94 wrote:

obobskivich wrote:

Sutekh94 wrote:

IIRC, the Dell was actively trying to downclock the Prescott chip, almost as if it knew how crazy hot those things can get. Even if those systems worked properly with that Prescott chip, the performance just wouldn't match an equivalent Northwood chip.

No curse, nothing creepy, etc. Prescott supports SpeedStep and will clock itself down (like any modern CPU) when it isn't under heavy load, or to improve cooling if it's overheating. A lot of older thick-client SFF machines shipped with 478/939 CPUs that they really weren't equipped to cool (~90W+ TDP chips), so the CPU usually ends up pretty aggressively throttled when put under load. Dell and HP were probably the absolute worst about this ca. ~2004-2007, and I think it's mostly those machines that end up perpetuating the stereotype of Pentium 4 as "awful."

Well, in any case, I'm glad I stuck with AMD during the time period when P4 stuff was everywhere, right up until I got my Q6600-based rig around late 2010. No reason to use a P4 of any kind when you have a Barton Athlon XP 3200+ trailblazing the way ahead.

EDIT: see below posts

I dunno, the 800mhz P4's do smoke the XP series, the Barton was never performance competitive, and if i remember right if you where going to spend 500+ on a cpu it was a P4, if you wanted to get bang for the buck you bought a Thoroughbred B XP 1700 and overclocked it.

Sutekh94 wrote:

Matter of fact, I'm not even sure if any 478-based P4 supports SpeedStep.

The mobile chips do.

candle_86 wrote:

I dunno, the 800mhz P4's do smoke the XP series

Yes, they do. However shortly after the Pentium4 HTs, AMD released the Socket 939-based 64bit CPUs, and those were on average better performing than the comparable P4s. There was a relatively short window, when the P4-HTs, despite being inefficient, and relying on a mediocre architecture, were still the best the market had to offer. But once that window shut, with the entry of those AMD64 and the Core series, the market could not forget the P4 fast enough. 😀

Sutekh94 wrote:

Well, in any case, I'm glad I stuck with AMD during the time period when P4 stuff was everywhere, right up until I got my Q6600-based rig around late 2010. No reason to use a P4 of any kind when you have a Barton Athlon XP 3200+ trailblazing the way ahead.

EDIT: see below posts

AthlonXP quickly became problematic for gaming due to the lack of SSE2/3. I remember back in ~2006 comparing my overclocked XP-M against a Celeron D (which is a Prescott), and while the XP-M had a clear advantage in "older" games like UT2004, the Celeron D even at the same clockspeed showed improvements for "newer" games like Oblivion, Hitman 4, NWN2, AOE3, etc. Sandra and other benchmarks also showed the improvements as well. With the Celeron D overclocked to being more equivalent to the XP's measured SSE/x87 performance, it was a better platform overall. Of course, by 2005-2006 the Athlon64 was also available, and offered even more performance potential.

And also remember: Quake 3 and NetBurst go together like peas and carrots. 😊

Sutekh94 wrote:

You are correct. After a little bit of digging on CPU World, I can confirm that the 478 Prescotts do not support SpeedStep. Matter of fact, I'm not even sure if any 478-based P4 supports SpeedStep.

Perhaps using the specific phrase "SpeedStep" was in error - P4 does feature thermal throttling and shutdown, even on Socket 478 (and I'm lazy and call all of Intel's throttling features "SpeedStep" 🤣 ). Specifically named SpeedStep is available on the Pentium 4-M, which is available for Socket 478.

Here's an article that shows the throttling process on both Northwood and Prescott:
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/p4-throttling/

Notice the erratic results with Prescott - couple that functionality with a cramped SFF enclosure and dinky hard-drive and the bad user experience is pretty easy to predict. I've worked on, and junked, enough of these kind of machines to fully understand the out and out hatred of Pentium 4 that most people seem to experience. Those boxes should not, however, be regarded as equivalent to a high end gaming box or workstation that uses NetBurst chips. Usually those machines have much better cooling, airflow, etc and offer reasonably good performance for their age, just like an AthlonXP or Athlon64.

candle_86 wrote:

I dunno, the 800mhz P4's do smoke the XP series, the Barton was never performance competitive, and if i remember right if you where going to spend 500+ on a cpu it was a P4, if you wanted to get bang for the buck you bought a Thoroughbred B XP 1700 and overclocked it.

A variety of K7 chips have been the "bang for the buck sweet spot" over the years - the XP 1700 is one of them. There are also Duron models, other AthlonXP models, AthlonXP-M models, Sempron models, etc. AthlonXP can be fairly competitive as long as SSE2/3 aren't a factor for whatever you're doing (e.g. "old games"). Note that I'm not really interested in the blood-feud-style comparisons where getting 102 FPS vs 104 FPS is as significant an event as the moon landing or invention of written language. So when I say "fairly competitive" I mean that if we're talking about an older game, like say UT2003, the AthlonXP is just as good as the Pentium 4 for the most part. 😊

Well went with a 3.0C, as his 3.4 wasn't posting, but he had a 3.0 Northwood, not quite as happy, but I'll manage 🤣

candle_86 wrote:

Well went with a 3.0C, as his 3.4 wasn't posting, but he had a 3.0 Northwood, not quite as happy, but I'll manage 🤣

Too bad about the 3.4, but 3.0C is still a fine chip. 😀