• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

2.8 Northwood or 3.0 Prescott for every day use.

theredguy

theredguy

theredguy

Suspended
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,193
Location
Forest of Dean
Hi

I have the choice between these 2 chips for my every day rig. Now i have no plans to overclock this rig thats what my opteron is for as i want it to remain stable, the machine will be used for browsing, downloading, encoding, gaming, watching dvd's, playing music etc etc.

In theory the 3.0 should be better due to it running 200MHz faster and having twice as much cache but in reality is this my best option and please remember that i won't be overclocking this one and regardless of which chip goes in i will be getting a good heatsink for it.

Cheers

:)

Oh both chips are 800fsb and HT enabled.
 
i personally would go for the 2.8 northwood i got a 3.0 gig northwood in a spare machine they run a lot cooler than the prescotts northwoods are still good chips and will even beat fast athlons at video encodeing etc
 
what i read before about them is theres not a great deal between prescotts and northwoods in some tests the northwood even beat the prescott core like you say one is 200mhz faster so i suppose if price difference is not that much you would probally be better going for the faster chip :)
 
There really isn't much between the 2 chips speed wise, the Northwood is slightly faster at a given clock speed, but as the Prescott is 200mhz faster, it levels out. I'd go for the northwood just because it runs cooler so get a nice low speed cooler and it will be nice and quiet.

Babyface UK
 
Intel only added the extra cache to Prescott to try and mask the fact its a slower chip. It has a longer pipeline the a Northwood P4, so everytime the pipeline stalls, it takes longer to get going again.

On average I'd put my money on the 2.8 Northwood being the quicker processor.
 
I have owned both and Prescott is much better as:

1: 512Kb more cache (handy for any app which can utilise it).

2: Cache & pipelines have more instructions/branch predictions.

3: Web browsing/video+music encoding ripping is much faster than the northwood.

4: Some northwoods only have a 533FSB. All prescotts have 800FSB. Best mobo to get is one based on the Intel 875P-T chipset.

5: The extra heat (5-10c) will not be noticeable with a decent HSF (Thermalright XP90C is best as you can put a silent 92mm fan on it and not hear it @ all. Zalman are good also but too noisy).

6: Can be overclocked to 3.5-3.6 on air (northwoods hit a ceiling @ 3.4).
 
i would say northwood,

I 'think' the low end prescotts are slower than northwoods clock for clock until they start getting over 3.4ghz.......... (i am sure someone will correct me if that wrong)
 
BillytheImpaler said:
What is the L2 cache on each chip? I'd think that the Prrescott would have the larger cache so i'd definitely go with that.
Click to expand...
Prescott=1024
Northwood=512

Prescott also has increased L1Data + L1 Trace cache & more instructions (hence the 31 pipelines). Some of these pipes come in very useful for non gaming tasks!
 
AWPC said:
4: Some northwoods only have a 533FSB. All prescotts have 800FSB. Best mobo to get is one based on the Intel 875P-T chipset.
Click to expand...
Not true.

sSpec# CPU Speed Bus Speed Mfg. Tech Stepping Cache Size Package Type
SL7K9 2.80A GHz 533 MHz 90 nm D0 1 MB 478 pin
SL88G 2.80 GHz 533 MHz 90 nm E0 1 MB 478 pin
SL7D8 2.80A GHz 533 MHz 90 nm C0 1 MB 478 pin
SL7E2 2.80 GHz 533 MHz 90 nm D0 1 MB 478 pin
SL7PK 2.80E GHz 533 MHz 90 nm E0 1 MB 478 pin
SL8B3 2.66 GHz 533 MHz 90 nm E0 1 MB 478 pin
SL7E9 2.66 GHz 533 MHz 90 nm C0 1 MB 478 pin
SL7FY 2.40 GHz 533 MHz 90 nm C0 1 MB 478 pin
SL7E8 2.40A GHz 533 MHz 90 nm C0 1 MB 478 pin
SL7YP 2.40 GHz 533 MHz 90 nm D0 1 MB 478 pin
SL88F 2.40 GHz 533 MHz 90 nm E0 1 MB 478 pin

Those are all 533MHz FSB Prescotts. (Info from the Intel Processor Spec Finder)
 
m3csl2004 said:
prescotts have a 31 stae pipeline making them worse at tasks like gaming, but better at encoding

have both got ht? (and not all northwoods hit a wall at 3.4 ;))
Click to expand...

your right mine was run day to day at 3.65 on air

and good for benching over 3.75 - Click 1 Click 2

just a shame its sat stock in the girlfriends shuttle (enjoying an easy retirement :p )


i do agree that prescotts do 'tend' to clock better though.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom