I can't answer your questions, but I had a P4 northwood PC ~ 2003 / 2004 I believe.

I had an Asus motherboard with 865 chipset and also a 2.6 Northwood. It must have been a C because it had 800 MHz FSB, I clearly remember that.

My video card was a Radeon 9800. The 9800 Pro was the best card you could buy at that time. The 6800 series came out a bit later.

AFAIK the early northwoods where awesome but later the A64 was the way to go. Nforce 2 mainboard and Venice core A64 4000 was the "top dog".

I remember clearly that the 865 chipset on my asus board didn't allow locking the AGP speed or something like that. Therefore overclocking was rather average. I believe the 875 chipset didn't have this issue.

When I got this system I also remember that there where faster cpu options. There was definitely a 2.8 and I am sure there was also a 3 GHz or faster model available.

Looking at Tomshardwares 6800 Ultra review they are using a P4 3.2 GHz on a GB 865 chipset board. April 14, 2004

On October 19, 2004 they reviewed the AMD64 4000+ and FX55: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/performan … eap,789-23.html they used a VIA K8T800 board for the AMD.

IThe P4 EE seems to be quite good, not sure what makes it faster than the non EE, maybe larger cache or something?

So IMO I would source a faster P4 (3 or 3.2 GHz and also a 6800GT or even Ultra if you can find one). Though a 6800 SLI system would be very very nice indeed 😀

Personally I prefer Intel stuff. The boards and usually very stable, as you found the parts are easy to find and everything usually "just works"...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I can't answer your questions, but I had a P4 northwood PC ~ 2003 / 2004 I believe. […]
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I can't answer your questions, but I had a P4 northwood PC ~ 2003 / 2004 I believe.

I had an Asus motherboard with 865 chipset and also a 2.6 Northwood. It must have been a C because it had 800 MHz FSB, I clearly remember that.

My video card was a Radeon 9800. The 9800 Pro was the best card you could buy at that time. The 6800 series came out a bit later.

AFAIK the early northwoods where awesome but later the A64 was the way to go. Nforce 2 mainboard and Venice core A64 4000 was the "top dog".

I remember clearly that the 865 chipset on my asus board didn't allow locking the AGP speed or something like that. Therefore overclocking was rather average. I believe the 875 chipset didn't have this issue.

When I got this system I also remember that there where faster cpu options. There was definitely a 2.8 and I am sure there was also a 3 GHz or faster model available.

Looking at Tomshardwares 6800 Ultra review they are using a P4 3.2 GHz on a GB 865 chipset board. April 14, 2004

On October 19, 2004 they reviewed the AMD64 4000+ and FX55: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/performan … eap,789-23.html they used a VIA K8T800 board for the AMD.

IThe P4 EE seems to be quite good, not sure what makes it faster than the non EE, maybe larger cache or something?

So IMO I would source a faster P4 (3 or 3.2 GHz and also a 6800GT or even Ultra if you can find one). Though a 6800 SLI system would be very very nice indeed 😀

The P4 EE s478 is a beast!! it's actually some kind of server CPU....has "massive" 2mb L3 cache
I'm using a 3.4ghz P4 EE s478 on an Asus IC7-G....together with a Radeon 3850 it can handle games such as Crysis at 1680x1050 at HIGH settings with decent framerates

There you go 🤣 Sounds excellent!

Amigaz wrote:

The P4 EE s478 is a beast!! it's actually some kind of server CPU....has "massive" 2mb L3 cache
I'm using a 3.4ghz P4 EE s478 on an Asus IC7-G....together with a Radeon 3850 it can handle games such as Crysis at 1680x1050 at HIGH settings with decent framerates

Holy crap! That's more power than I ever tought possible from a 478. Also you mean Abit IC-7G?

TBH, back in the day I use to look down at socket 478 systems with my uber -leet (back then!) 939 system. Plus, I hated everything to do with P4's as that's what we used at work- so P4 = drudgery/ white collar drone land. Used to hear the beep of my Dell 5 days a week ....beep! begin brain lobotomy! beep... begin conversion to borg collective drone...beep fcuking beep.

Back to my beloved but long dead 939 system...it had everything on it, DFI NF3 mobo, 3gbs DDR400, 6600GT and A64 3000+ overclocked to 2.4ghz. When I rebuilt it later after it rode the lightning I eventually added a 3850 AGP to it, that thing freaking rocked, but then it fcked up again due to a chip burning up on it. I was so pissed off, cause it took me ages to get a replacement board and I spent a fair bit on it, only for it to burn up again. But that was 2008, and by then I already had a Phenom 1 system, so I just tossed what was remaining into the store and sold the rest for parts. I really really regret selling my 3850 AGP though but it was doen in a fit of anger 😢

OK, back to topic, the EE according to what I've read is a Xeon server chip repackaged into s478 and the main reason why it's so fast is cause of the 2mb L3 cache.

OK, must get one then looks like it. Oh, BTW my board is a DFI 865PE-AL, if that has anything to do with with it.

EE stands for Extreme Edition I believe. Basically very very expensive chips for enthusiasts / people with too much money 🤣 But now they are quite affordable so I would definitely go for one of these!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

EE stands for Extreme Edition I believe. Basically very very expensive chips for enthusiasts / people with too much money 🤣 But now they are quite affordable so I would definitely go for one of these!

I could get one here for around USD56.... some sellers still stock 'em if you know where to look. But earlier before Amigaz's post I was thinking an upgrade to maybe Northwood 'C'.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I remember clearly that the 865 chipset on my asus board didn't allow locking the AGP speed or something like that. Therefore overclocking was rather average. I believe the 875 chipset didn't have this issue....

So IMO I would source a faster P4 (3 or 3.2 GHz and also a 6800GT or even Ultra if you can find one). Though a 6800 SLI system would be very very nice indeed 😀

....Personally I prefer Intel stuff. The boards and usually very stable, as you found the parts are easy to find and everything usually "just works"...

I'm lucky then my particular board has AGP/PCI/ SATA locks so I can lock everything at 33/66/100. I'll see how it goes though, might get an Asus P4P800 or P4C800 too, both to play around with and as "insurance" in case I screw my DFI board up.

Agree on the 6800 SLI system...that was like a quantum leap ahead of everything back in '04, man you were king if you had a setup like that. Would be cool to build a retro SLI setup...'cept I would avoid socket 939 this time round.

Intel stuff more stable and just works? Probably... I've stuck to AMD since the 939 days, having had my 939 system, then a single core AM2 (LE1600), then an 5000BE, 6000, a 9850BE, 7750BE, and 955BE. Had a few issues in these 5 years, 1 they cut 939 after 1 year or so of me paying good money for one thus dooming all chances of upgrading/ replacement and 2, I was a very early adopter of Phenom 1 and I remmeber looking for mobos that actually really supported the damn thngs, and 3 some of the chips were total turkeys like the 6000+ which ran super hot and was a mobo killer-I could never get the stupid thing to run stable which was a pain cause I sold my super duper 5000BE to get the 6000. Bought a Gigabyte 790x-ds4 which was a total turkey...

Yea I admit I'm a Intel fan boy 🤣

Although I currently do have an AMD system. It's a 555 dual core which unlocked into a quad. Now that's the kind of value I love. I always feel that with AMD it takes a while for main boards and BIOS issues to be resolved.

Next year I will upgrade to Sandy Bridge though. Not sure why, I just like to have new toys and Sandy Bridge should be quite affordable...

I dunno if it'd really be worth it to upgrade to a Northwood-C, unless you happen to find one really cheap. Hyperthreading is really of limited benefit, especially in older games. The 800FSB will make a bit of difference, but it's not huge. Plus, the D1 chip you have should be a good clocker.

First thing, what are your actual temperatures on that thing?

3.36ghz isn't bad for <1.6V on a Northwood. There's a good chance you can get up into the 3.6ghz range with 1.625 or 1.65V. Just make sure you use a cooler that can keep it under 55C at load, and keep the voltage under 1.7V.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I dunno if it'd really be worth it to upgrade to a Northwood-C, unless you happen to find one really cheap. Hyperthreading is really of limited benefit, especially in older games. The 800FSB will make a bit of difference, but it's not huge. Plus, the D1 chip you have should be a good clocker.

First thing, what are your actual temperatures on that thing?

3.36ghz isn't bad for <1.6V on a Northwood. There's a good chance you can get up into the 3.6ghz range with 1.625 or 1.65V. Just make sure you use a cooler that can keep it under 55C at load, and keep the voltage under 1.7V.

I have reduced the vcore further to 1.5625v and found it to be stable at 3.36ghz, but am unable to get even 3.4ghz stable at 1.6v. 3.6ghz refuses to post, while I can run superpi 1m with 3.5ghz but it's not stable. Also, cpu-z constantly reports a lower voltage than anything I've set it to in bios- vdroop maybe?

Using the stock cooler ATM with some Coolermaster grey paste (the expensive stuff), idle temps are 51c and load is 65c or so. A bit high? Have reapplied paste and reseated the h/s numerous times but this is the best I get.

You need a better heatsink. Those temps are terrible, bordering on dangerous under load. 70C is the absolute max rating on those things, and the temperature sensors sometimes under-report by a few degrees.

The CPU will throttle itself to prevent heat damage. If it's not throttling who really cares how hot it is. 😁

HWInfo32 will show throttling status. If it is throttling you will probably notice performance loss too, depending on how much and how often it is dropping clock rate.

BTW, P4 sucks. 🤣 Well, the Northwood was nice for awhile. Compared with Athlon XP. When they tried getting them over 3 GHz the power output shot up and the competition destroyed them though.

If it's not throttling who really cares how hot it is.

Well, probably the owner of it cares, if he's trying to get a good overclock going. Northwoods don't like heat so much, they're not like the Prescotts which were perfectly happy at 75C+. If you want it stable at high clocks, you need to cool it off. It's not that hard to get ahold of a decent aftermarket S478 cooler for cheap anyway... they're not exactly in high demand anymore.

Sure. If someone wants to push P4s into the mid 3GHz range, he will need to spend money on a beast of a cooler and have a lot of airflow.

I've seen the dual core 10W Atom beat up those P4s. 😁

Tom's or Anand's- can't remember which had a Northwood vs Prescott temp test to determine the point at which throttling takes place. For Northwood's it was 74c or so. No throttling at 70c but I wouldn't wanna run my system at those temps all the same.

I'm aware of the Netburst long pipelines, shitty clock-for-clock performance vis-a-vis anything else and how it failed to scale to the initially projected 10ghz blah blah but I must stress, this project is not done with the aim of making this system comparable to any modern rig or whatever.

This is my Prescott box. It originally had a 2.66 GHz Northwood but I had a 3.2 HT 800 Prescott in my drawer. Unfortunately the Dell cooling sucks and it was throttling so I pondered a free solution. I installed an 80mm fan on the heatsink (zip ties baby) and removed the green Dell duct. I also shorted the thermistor on the big outlet fan (for max speed) but set it up on 5 volts (at 12v it spins at unbelievable RPM). That fan is a 92x38mm beast. This got it cool enough to not throttle while also keeping it quiet. The case definitely has inadequate air inlets.

Dell Dimension 4600
-P4 3.2 800 HT
-865PE
-1.5 GB PC3200
-200GB Seagate 7200.7
-GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
-Audigy 4
-Intel Pro 1000 GT NIC
-a DVD-ROM and a CDRW (I think)

Yeah how's that for inefficiency? A P4 AND a GeForce FX. 😁

I did play some Half Life 2 and Jedi Academy on it. It's amazing how poorly a 5900 Ultra runs HL2 in DirectX 9 mode. It's fast in DX8 mode (the default) but it clearly has lower effects quality this way. No doubt a lowly Radeon 9600 would show it up.

BTW, Amigaz has a sweet Dell P4 that uses the 850 chipset and he has a 3.06 GHz Northwood in it.

swaaye wrote:

This is my Prescott box. It originally had a 2.66 GHz Northwood but I had a 3.2 HT 800 Prescott in my drawer. Unfortunately the […]
Show full quote

This is my Prescott box. It originally had a 2.66 GHz Northwood but I had a 3.2 HT 800 Prescott in my drawer. Unfortunately the Dell cooling sucks and it was throttling so I pondered a free solution. I installed an 80mm fan on the heatsink (zip ties baby) and removed the green Dell duct. I also shorted the thermistor on the big outlet fan (for max speed) but set it up on 5 volts (at 12v it spins at unbelievable RPM). That fan is a 92x38mm beast. This got it cool enough to not throttle while also keeping it quiet. The case definitely has inadequate air inlets.
Dell Dimension 4600
-P4 3.2 800 HT
-865PE
-1.5 GB PC3200
-200GB Seagate 7200.7
-GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
-Audigy 4
-Intel Pro 1000 GT NIC
-a DVD-ROM and a CDRW (I think)
Yeah how's that for inefficiency? A P4 AND a GeForce FX. 😁
I did play some Half Life 2 and Jedi Academy on it. It's amazing how poorly a 5900 Ultra runs HL2 in DirectX 9 mode. It's fast in DX8 mode (the default) but it clearly has lower effects quality this way. No doubt a lowly Radeon 9600 would show it up.
BTW, Amigaz has a sweet Dell P4 that uses the 850 chipset and he has a 3.06 GHz Northwood in it.

Nice ghetto cooling! I had a Precision 350 sometime back that I sold off – nice solid machine.
I woulda thought an FX5900 Ultra would run HL2 well, on paper it looks equivalent to a 9800Pro. I have a 4600Ti, and that runs HL2 surprisingly well -in DX8 of course. Looks almost the same to me as DX9 though. That game seems more like a cpu hog, and a hefty one at that considering it came out in ’04. In fact quite a few games from 04-05 – HL2, NFSMW, BFME, FEAR, have pretty serious cpu requirements –rendering nearly all P4s except the top end obsolete.
Ok, I’ve got a Prescott 3ghz here with me that doesn’t wanna post. I think the processor’s shot since my mobo- DFI865PE-AL should support it and I’ve updated it to the latest bios. Can’t verify it though as my other 478 motherboards only support 400/533 fsb cpus.

I figure that even with the longer pipeline of the Prescott vs the Northwood the high stock clock, HT and especially the 800mhz fsb should provide an improvement over my 2.8b, especially if I o/c it a bit.

Yeah if you know the board is good and it supports that CPU, then the CPU may be dead... I got my 3.2 out of a dead board but the CPU was fine. Somebody had put this little furnace into a SiS mobo with only 533 support and I think it eventually fried the VRMs. I got the board to post with another CPU but only once.

About HL2, check these benchmarks out. GeForce FX sucks, even NV35. I can personally vouch for that massive disparity between the DX8 and 9 modes. 🤣
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_f … life2/page5.asp

You weren't kidding. The 9800 drops maybe 15% in DX9 compared with DX8, but the FX drops like 100%. They really screwed that one up...

I remember that Valve made the game run in DX8 mode when it detected a Geforce FX 🤣