P4's.?...what are thay like?

[Fingers]

Thinking of getting a p4 1.5

1, Do thay overclock without the need for water, freezers.

2, Will I need all new mem.

Any thoughts on p4's.

[Monaco]

P4s seem to overclock pretty well. They don't put out very much heat compared to an Athlon or Duron, and the heatsinks for them are huge- the chip itself is pretty big, and the 'sink has to be big to cover it. The stock HSF is usually enough to get a decent OC out of one, at least in my experiance.

You will probably need all new memory- P4s can take RDRAM, DDR-RAM, or SDRAM-but the SD boards are to slow, the RD boards are to expensive, and the DDR boards don't exist yet(i think).

Altogether, a P4 system will be both more expensive and slower than a comparable AMD system. P4s just don't have it together yet. If you really want one, that's cool but wait but- all the chipsets that work with the P4 are pretty much crap- but there are a couple of new chipsets coming out soon that promise to be faster and cheaper than existing ones.

Even with the new chipsets, an Athlon is still cheaper and faster! :D

[Stealth]

If you really want to go P4, I would wait just a little while and see what the Northwood P4's have to offer, right now AMD takes the cake for price vs. preformance, the P4 northwood core promises better proformance, if you do get one now make sure to get a socket 478 and not a 423(?) as the 423 will not be made to go faster than 2.0 and the 478 will in the future

[Fingers]

Cheers for the advice chaps.

One thing re the athlon though, I thought they were not to hot on multi tasking?. Plus very hard to cool?

I think I will wait for a while. My p3 1gig is not to dusty just yet.

[[OC]_SR20DE]

yeah the T-birds run very hot even at default speed and voltages. You would need very good cooling to help cool the T-bird. In the other hand, about the Intel, especially the P4's run very well without good cooling setup. It can still run with no fan on the heatsink while it's overclocked! My dad's T-bird's temp at idle is 46C with Fop-32-1 cooler. That's hot. It needs better air circulation in the case and replace the HSF with a SK-6.

[Monaco]

When it comes to multi-tasking, you really rely more on the Operating System than the CPU. However, all things being equal, an Athlon and it's huge on-die cache should do just as well if not better than a P4 at multi-tasking.

Personally, I've never run into a scenario where even my Celeron 961mhz can't handle all the programs I throw at it.

As for the heat, yeah Athlons are hot as heck- but if you aren't planning to do any serious overclocking, who cares how hot it is? As long as it works!

[ol' man]

A PIV without a HS fan0????????????
A PIV puts out alot of heat!

A 2GHz PIV puts out 75w of heat. Now that is very high. Higher than a PIII on .13u. Higher than a 1.53GHz athy. Even a 1.5GHz PIV puts out 55w.

PIII .13u at default vcore put out 30w. I have mine at 1.3v so I would imagine that it puts out around 20w.
That is easy to cool but I still have a fan on it.

[[OC]_SR20DE]

Originally posted by ol' man
A PIV without a HS fan0????????????
A PIV puts out alot of heat!

A 2GHz PIV puts out 75w of heat. Now that is very high. Higher than a PIII on .13u. Higher than a 1.53GHz athy. Even a 1.5GHz PIV puts out 55w.

PIII .13u at default vcore put out 30w. I have mine at 1.3v so I would imagine that it puts out around 20w.
That is easy to cool but I still have a fan on it.


Wronggg... I said, "..with no fan on the heatsink.... " that is not the same as what you said "A PIV without a HS fan0????????????

[[OC]_SR20DE]

wait a min... a P4 putting out more heat than the T-bird? LOLLLLLLL so i guess that means the P4 will not be able to released with such high mhz than the T-bird or XP then. LOL. I find that hard to believe.. Could you please post some link that fully support your claims? Or is it some math equation of heat and electricity of yours to apply it on the processors? I am not trying to provoke you.. I just like to see where you found this from. =)

[TC]

DON'T get one right now - please wait until the northwood comes out. You're wasting your money to buy a 1.5gig. If you just have to get one, get one of the 478 pin willys so you'll have a 478 board that will accept the northwood core.

[ol' man]

PIII sspecs

http://support.intel.com/support/processors/sspec/p3p.htm

The amount of heat produced when in operation is under"Thermal Design Power."

Here is the PIV sspecs.

http://support.intel.com/support/processors/sspec/p4p.htm

Not to argue or anything, but the heat that the athy's and PIV's put outi s the reason I did not buy either of them. Way to much heat and in affect the fans needed to run them would have been way too loud. The .13u northwood should cool much nicer and should be a good chip. IMHO the PIV's are a discrace. But that is my HO. Maybe the northwoods will change that attitude.

Here is AMD's data sheets for their AMD's

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/24309.pdf

The 1.53GHz cpu from AMD puts out 59.2w.

ATM the 1.53GHz AMD chip is the king of the hill for most apps even beating a 2GHz. Even though I still wouldn't buy one right now. I need quiet operation. .18u just isn't going to offer that.

Even a 1.6GHz celery at 133MHz fsb is going to only put out at max 40w if that at load. Without the IHS it may be even less.

Hope this answers your questions!

To make it short, the PIV's are HOT running.

[Monaco]

I'm pretty sure Intel is quoting maximum load temp, and AMD is quoting idle temp. That could explain the difference.

I've used both, and AMD chips definately run hotter. The chipset on Athlon boards also seem to run much hotter. Moreover, AMD chips get hotter, faster, as you overclock them. Larger transistor count and manufacturing process, ya know!:)

I could of course be wrong-sometimes that happens!:D

BTW you stick a slow fan on a heatsink and your computer gets hotter, but quieter. If you are not overclocking, stock HSFs work just fine. Or toss an 80mm fan on there! Without OCing, you can use the manufacturer's max operating temp as your guide.

If you want quiet, fast, and low temperature, you should be thinking dual P3s anyway.

[Monaco]

Ok, I was reading the AMD spec sheet you linked a little more closely- it claims that the XP 1800+ puts out 66.0W at full load, and 59.2W at idle. "Maximum" versus "typical" loads, they call it.

A difference of only 6.8W between load and idle??? No way. This has got to be a misprint. That or AMD is indulging in some wishful thinking!!:D

From 66W to 90W is more realistic. And still conservative.

They also say XP will operate at a max of 90C. Now that is frickin HOT, even a crappy slow-fan HSF will keep it under 70C. So you should be safe to get one and put a HSF with a low-RPM fan on it, to avoid noise. As long as you don't intend to OC of course!:D

[ol' man]

I am pretty sure they are both at idle. A PIII 1Ghz has about 30w. That has to be at idle.

[Monaco]

One more thing- a P4 has about 10 times the radiating surface that an AMD chip has- the whole heat spreader on a P4 is huge compared to the little tiny core on an Athlon. So, that makes it much easier to cool, larger contact patch between CPU and HSF.

How cool could I run my Duron if the core was 2inch by 2 inch? hehe, if only! wishful thinking on my part.........

[[OC]_SR20DE]

Ol'man,

Thank you for the reply and the URL. I wasn't aware of the Thermal Design Power in watts. yes I suppose we have to consider the importance of how much of heat the each type of CPU puts out. It looks like the AMD and Intel chips behave differently in stability wise when they are overclocked. P3 for example, it usually become unstable when the CPU temp goes beyond 43C+/- and up whereas the T-bird chips seem to handle fairly well at 48- 50C (this is the rough range, not exact) , So I don't know exactly how Thermal design power between the P3 and T-bird for example could be fairly compared.. They just seem to act differently. The reason why I gave credit to P4 is not simply because I'm biased, but there was some article on testing the P4(current version), P3 and the T-bird systems to run applications(i don't remember exactly what they ran) without the Fan on the heatsink. The result was.. T-bird chips died completely. The P3's just shut down but they all woke up when rebooted. The P4 was keep running without shut down but it had some safety features like its processor's speed decreased automatically to help reduce the heat. But the thing is that these Intel chips didn't get killed. now, that's quite impressive.

And yes, I don't like the current P4 anyway cauze they perform SUCKS. That's why I didn't even think about getting one of those systems. If I ever buy a P4, it would be the Northwood that's if I can afford it of course. The only thing I was impressed about the P4 is that they are able to withstand from the heat and continue to run. IF the fan goes wrong and stops working and you don't even know it, your processor could get damaged, but in this case it would be ok.

In the past, I used to work in some privately owned shop where they build and sell high-end workstations and some of the custom ordered Desktop PC's. The first incident was that there was a time when i accidently tested the P3 CPU without the Heatsink and Fan!! I mean nothing... nothing on it at all. The CPU worked... and shut down. I was able to turn them back on and they were working fine. It must be strange that the P4 puts out such large amount of heat and be stable with no fan.. hmm.. I donno..

[theflyingrat]

You'd have to think about it this way - the P3s and Athlons had no way of dumping heat from the core if the HSF falls off. P4s have one huge advantage in this regard. Not only can they throttle their voltage and speed dynamically to slow the CPU down, creating less heat, they still have that heat cap. Although it may only make a little difference, it still acts as a heat sink to some extent. A combination of the two makes for a CPU that's extremely hard to kill, albeit a little slow.

[SP]

Originally posted by Monster of Rock
all the chipsets that work with the P4 are pretty much crap

You've gotta be joking right? Intel chipsets are the best chipsets made. I would recommend an I840,I850, or I860 chipset to anyone for any reason. In fact, that's the best thing Intel has going for them, their chipsets. It's the main reason why many people are willing to pay a premium price for an Intel system that may not perform quite as well in some benchmarks as an AMD system. It's the main advantage Intel has over AMD and it's AMDs greatest weakness. Intel chipsets offer the best compatability and stability and almost the best performance of any chipset. The only chipset that is better is the severworks chipsets and they tend to be very expensive and are only found in multiprocessor servers. It's really almost laughable for you to say that and then suggest someone should purchase an AMD system. AMD has come along way in recent years and even I find the performance of their processors in certain areas (floating point intensive applications) to be quite impressive, but if there's one thing that hurts them more than anything else It's their lack of a decent chipset to support their processors. For the most part they have had to rely on VIA chipsets and Via is quite frankly complete utter crap.

As for Rdram, it really isn't that expensive anymore. Check pricewatch and you'll see. Furthermore Rdram offers the best memory performance you'll find. The only way DDR can equal or outperform Rdram is by going to more channels and that will increase the complexity of motherboards, require more layers and drive up the cost of the motherboard. Furthermore just as a motherboard manufacturer can add more channels of DDR to increase bandwidth so can they add more channels of RDRam. In fact, it would be easier to do with Rdram as Rdram uses fewer data lines. That means for the same number of data lines you could have twice as many channels of Rdram as DDR which means a multichannel RDram board would be easier to make than a DDR board with the same number of channels. Rdram is the way of the future. Alot of people don't like it because they either dislike the company that designed it and their tactics or they dislike it because it used to be fairly expensive, but make no mistake about it, when your talking performance Rdram delivers.

[ol' man]

Originally posted by theflyingrat
You'd have to think about it this way - the P3s and Athlons had no way of dumping heat from the core if the HSF falls off. P4s have one huge advantage in this regard. Not only can they throttle their voltage and speed dynamically to slow the CPU down, creating less heat, they still have that heat cap. Although it may only make a little difference, it still acts as a heat sink to some extent. A combination of the two makes for a CPU that's extremely hard to kill, albeit a little slow.

Well shi#, I am in the process of peeling this IHS off right now as we speak. I think it subtracts from the performance a cpu can deliver when OC'd. We will find out now won't we. Hopefully I don't kill my chip in the process:D

[theflyingrat]

Well, tell us all how it works. If you keep a HSF on it, it shouldn't matter anyway - it'll hopefully stay cool! Also, could you post a pic so we can all see what a real P4 core looks like, please?

And for those who doubt DDR's effectiveness with the P4 (as opposed to Rambus), take this link to see a cheap SiS chipset walk all over the 850.

http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=1541&p=6

[Monaco]

SP- yes, crap. Considering the huge capability of RDRAM and the P4, the P4 solution should be the hands down winner. RDRAM and a 400mhz bus? C'mon, P4 should rock the house in every way- but they don't. I'm talking total overall system performance here, not some dumb Sandra numbers that mean nothing in real life. It took the Athlon like 2 years as to where it had a good DDR system, and I plan to wait at least that long until I choose a P4 for my home system. Some day, P4 systems will totally rock, but until then I'll choose a P3 or AMD system instead. They're cheaper, and in many way faster than their P4 counterparts. Not all ways, granted, but enough to matter.

As for the "poor chipset" thing you said AMD has, well I gotta disagree there. You do have to choose your brand a bit more carefully with AMD, but their newer chipsets are just as stable as anything Intel has ever pumped out. The AMD subsystem itself is quite stressful on hardware- AMD boards don't tolerate tweaking unless all the equipment being used are of quite high quality. I guess this could be viewed as a downside, just means you can't buy cheap and expect a great ride. If you run AMD boards completely at stock/default whatever, they perform as well as you could possibly hope.

Well cool hope I straightened my point up. I am an Intel fan at heart, I run overclocked Cellies in all my machines but one-A Duron:). One day there'll be some P4s in there, but not today.