Rookie P4 Question...

[Elghin]

I just want to make sure I have this right...

If I want to get an intel processor that is faster than 1190 (this seems to be the wall on overclocked P3's) I need to buy a P4. Am I correct in understanding that if I wish to buy a P4 ($550) that I need a new motherboard ($250) and I also need to buy new RAM ($400 -cuz I need two sticks and that's the cheep stuff)????

Do I have that right? Or am I missing something where I can use existing memory and buy some special motherboard that will support the P4 and use my existing SDRAM? The P4 is built around the RDRAM (Rambus stuff that everyone hates right now right)?

I just wanted to make sure. If this is the case, I will be forced to jump ship soon. I just got my P3 700 to 1100, and am waiting for one more piece of equipment and going for the 1190 mark. Once I hit that though I'm done. It will be time to try and overclock something else.

Maybe if I dip my P3 in chrome and then try and run it... yeah... that might work... Chrome makes everything go faster... Everyone knows that!!!! =)

Thanks for any help. Feel free to school me on the P4 deal.

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

Yes you are right, new mobo, new ram, and no you can't use sdram...not yet, maybe not ever...maybe ddr though in the future.
I would wait for the next stepping P4 .13micron process....should be some great clockers.
Rumor has it that they will change the socket with the next P4, so I would give it a while....but if you have to have a P4 now, check out pricewatch.com for up to date pricing...also I think the retail boxed P4's come with either 64 or 128m of pc800 rdram, you can also find combo's out there (mobo/cpu)...and if you decide to P4 now...might I suggest the 1.3g ver, as I think they will all overclock well to 1600 at least..(imo).but I am not sure how the bus/multiplier works on the P4.
just my 2 cents

[Phil]

before you make a really big mistake read some of the posts on here about the p4 and also articles on it, it has to be the worst processor intel has ever released, worse than the old celeron with no cache, even if you had the chip running at 2ghz I doubt you would notice any speed improvements over a 1.19ghz p3, in fact in some things it would be worse. If I were you I would plump for a T Bird and overclock that to somewhere around 1.4ghz or more with ddr ram as this will be faster than a p4.

[Elghin]

Thanks guys...

I was guessing that, but I just wanted to be sure that Intel did, in fact, screw up as bad as I thought they had... It's unfortunate, because I have always been a Intel kind of guy...

Well, AMD, here I come!!!!

Incidentally, http://www.tomshardware.com has one hell of an AMD rig with the Vapochill case. Personally, I think that the vapochill is way overpriced, and think I can do it better myself, but his benchmarks make the AMD look like the way to go for at least the next year.

I really don't think that Intel has a way to get out of the corner they have painted themselves into. I think I'll wait for the Pentium five. =) Maybe they won't screw that up.

Thanks again for the info...

[Phil]

If they hadn't been so greedy and waited until the p4 was ready like amd did with it's athlon they could have had a killer chip, but I can't believe how much they charge for it even with all the features they cut from it

[Metaxas]

Intel is CRAP...plain and simple. Even when they go to the .13Micron fab process, they are going to be just as LOCKED as they are now. Good overclocking chips my ass. So you can jack the FSB up, and screw your HDD's to hell, nic won't work, if you have SCSI...prepare for a o/c'ing nightmare.... I say all in all, intel is just overpriced average performing cpu's, hey, someone has to pay for those 3 blue guys coke habit... ;D