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3.0 Northy or 3.4 Prescott

joroma

joroma

joroma

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21 Mar 2004
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Currently running a 3.0 northy at 3.3 but have got the option of fitting a 3.4 Prescott that I could presumably oc to around 3.7ish. Would this be worthwhile or will any improvement in speed be negligible. Mobo and mem as sig and pc is used for gaming and digital photography (Photoshop CS).

Also Prescott is Feb 04 so is that considered later type that doesn't get as hot?
 
The Prescott will run a lot hotter, it has to be said.

However, with your P4P800 and a decent Heatsink, you could quite easily see anywhere between 3.7 and 4.0GHz. They tend to scale very well by increasing cpu voltage.

Though do note, without putting your memory on a divider, your memory could hold back any overclocking efforts past 230-235fsb.

Mul
 
Keep the Northie, you need to clock that Prescott really high before it'd be worth it, i wonder even at 3.7 if it'll be any or much faster than the Northwood at 3.3, also the extra grief from possible heat/power issues ain't worth it as faster clocks and higher vcore may really get that Prescott cooking.
 
Not worth the effort to be honest. I would try to push that Northy further.

Depending on the steppings, the earlier C0 and D0 runs very hot while the later E0 is slightly cooler I think.

The D0 I used to have maxed out at 3.9Ghz @ 74C under load!! And that was outside of case under the XP90 and 90mm 1600rpm fan. In the case it ran nice and cool at "only" 61C under full load @ 3.6Ghz 1.25V.

Yes Prescott overclocks easily if you are prepared to spend on expensive cooling solutions which is just not worth it for the little performance increase over Northwood.
 
Thanx for the info. With my mobo is it easy to put the memory on a divider? I assume I do it in my BIOS.
 
Yes I had the P4P800E-Deluxe and the option is under the "jumper free configuration" I think, set it to 166Mhz will allow you to increase the fsb to 250Mhz without pushing the RAM.
 
Divider will reduce the performance increase from the overclock though...CPU will be sat waiting for the memory to catch up with the rest of the system.
 
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