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p4c800 better than p4p800?

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gustav

Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2003
Location
Folding in Illinois
i've got a p4p800 deluxe, got it late summer, i thought i would be able to build a good system in the fall. well, i dont have very much money so thats holding me back. but i wondered, ocing wise, would a p4c800 or the p4p800 do better, or doesnt it matter? i read that the only difference is in the chipset, in that the p4c800 always you to enable PAT, but asus, being a slick and sly mobo company, found a back door and enabled it on the p4p800 making the p4c800 useless. i also heard that PAT doesnt matter when ocing because it only works with 800 fsb. so would it be wise to sell off my (unused, still in the anti static plastic bag) p4p800 and pick up a p4c800? will the p4p800 hold me back in my processors overclock? (i plan on having a 2.8CGHz w/ M0 stepping when i can find one and corsair pc4000 ram - hoping to get a good overclock with 1:1 ratio)
 
They OC the same you get about a 3% mem bandwidth increase on the P4C...is it worth it?...that's up to you.
 
so is this extra 3% mem bandwidth measured when both board boards have PAT enabled? - just curious.

if they overclock the same, I will stay with my current board. and mem bandwidth really wont be a problem - i've got pc4000 ram :D . only physical difference that I noticed is p4c800's have 4 SATA connectors, my p4p800 only has 2 :( and like you say, if they overclock just the same, I guess there is no reason to pay $50 for essentially the same thing. thanks for the fast replies, they cleared up this issue for me :D
 
No the PAT emulation on the P4P dosn't work OCd therefore the 3% difference on the P4C..semantics really..
 
I think it is not worth to sell P4P800 and buy P4C800. My brother has a P4P800 and o/ced it better than me.
 
PAT is nothing else than more aggressive memory access, which leads to increased memory performance.

The difference between the 875 and the 865PE is very little. Basically they are the same, but same in the manor that a 2.4 and a 3.2 are the same.

They are made with the same design, but they are speed binned, just like processors, with the best ones badged as 875s, guaranteed to work with the aggressive timings - called PAT by the Intel marketing people. The 865PEs might work at those aggressive timings too - PAT enabled, but this is not guaranteed.

It's just like how a 2.4C often can run at 3.2Ghz, but that's not guaranteed, whereas if you buy a 3.2, you are guaranteed 3.2Ghz operation.

If you enable PAT on a 865PE motherboard, the performance is identical to a 875 motherboard. I think a lot of 865 can work with PAT enabled at 200FSB. The thing is, the 875 has more overclocking potential, and once you crank the FSB up, the 875 will still work with PAT enabled, but a lot of 865PEs will not.

Quite similar to overclocking your CPU really.

I don't think it's really worth it to get rid of your P4P800 for a P4C800, especially if your budget is limited.
 
A theory on pat is that in fact it is not an enhancement. It's supposed to provide/create shorter more efficient memory paths. You cannot "create" shorter paths. they exist on all the chipsets, they are roadblocked on the 865's, creating a longer path.
 
Intel had to differentiate the 875 and 865, so PAT, Performance Acceleration Technology, is just what Inte's PR people came up with.

All it is, is just more aggressive setting of the memory controller, to cut around 2 cycles from each memory access.

Intel didn't want just say something like "the 875 is a little bit faster than the 865", instead, they say "the 875 has PAT, the 865 does not", to make you think there's some large difference. That's marketting for you...
 
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