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Motherboard for my P4

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Bjm2587

Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2008
Hello, I have a pentium 4 chip that I found laying around. I don't know which one it is but it says its rated at 3.00ghz. I'm pretty sure its a 478 because its much smaller than the older ones I saw pictures of. Anyway, is there anyway to tell exactly which one I have without plugging it into a board? Theres a few lines of numbers written on it but I don't know what they mean. The top line says intel '04 does that mean it was made in 2004? My main question is which motherboard can I get that has the bios to support over clocking? Thanks.
 
You can get an Asus P4P/P4C series board. These were the best ocing socket 478 boards of their time. Abit also had a really good 478 board, but not as popular as the Asus.
 
Hello, I have a pentium 4 chip that I found laying around. I don't know which one it is but it says its rated at 3.00ghz. I'm pretty sure its a 478 because its much smaller than the older ones I saw pictures of. Anyway, is there anyway to tell exactly which one I have without plugging it into a board? Theres a few lines of numbers written on it but I don't know what they mean. The top line says intel '04 does that mean it was made in 2004? My main question is which motherboard can I get that has the bios to support over clocking? Thanks.

Type in the group of letters/numbers starting with SL into google and you will find out what that chip is.
 
Dont know why I didnt think of that. Are these good for overclocking? I've heard of people getting p4's up to 5ghz with liquid nitrogen.

http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL7PM

Yea,, not to bad... You are correct though, a lot of the records inplace for OC'ing are still there for those processors if you check rippin.org. The 90nm stuff does tend to run really hot though, I have a socket 775 version of that processor and it will run 4ghz on high end air cooling just bumping 70c. I would think watercooling would be way better, but seeing as i already have good air going with a 65nm or 45nm cpu would be ideal for me.
 
Thanks for the info. Would it be worth it to put the money into buying a board, ram, water cooling supplies etc... For gaming on an old 478? I think it has hyper threading. What do you guys think? I'm kinda skeptical because my last desktop was a quadcore.... sigh...
 
no, one reason: your stuck with max AGP gforce 6800 gt.
as for the top new agp ati card there expensive compaired to nice cheap pci-e cards.
 
Thanks for the info. Would it be worth it to put the money into buying a board, ram, water cooling supplies etc... For gaming on an old 478? I think it has hyper threading. What do you guys think? I'm kinda skeptical because my last desktop was a quadcore.... sigh...

Skeptical about what? Quad cores are the future.

Would it be worth it to put money into a board? Hell no. Ram? Even less. Water cooling supplies? Now I'm just feeling sick to my stomach. Gaming on an old 478. What are you going to get out of that? Really?

What do you have? A CPU? What's the point?

478 pins, really really really bad microarchitechture with a pipeline that wraps around the planet 3 times before anything actually gets executed.

A base speed of 200. An 800Mhz system bus. 400Mhz RAM. Horrible graphics bandwidth. High heat production. Five year old + chipsets... Why oh why?

It's rediculous to even consider. 478 chips are for 'displaying' with your other dinosaur computer equipment in a chest, or perhaps in a nice frame, or on a shelf.

You can buy an e5xxx for like sixty bucks that'll SMOKE your P4 CPU.
 
I have no opinion on what is worth or not, over the years, I have spent money enough on computer hardware until I have become numb.

However, there apparently is a market for these s478 CPUs that are being recycled or replaced.
The following socket478 motherboards support PCI-e, DDR2 and SATA (II)

Asrock P4i945GC
Biostar 945GC-M4 7.x
MSI 945GCM478-L
Biostar P4M900-M4


I reckon a set with one of these and 2 x 2GB DDR2 would come about $100.
 
Definitely not worth it unless you had the parts laying around or could get them for basically nothing.
 
I reckon a set with one of these and 2 x 2GB DDR2 would come about $100.

Unfortunately, the DDR2 and PCI-Express graphics sockets on these boards would still be tied to that Pentium 4 like a boat is to its anchor. Most (and likely all) of those boards listed are also slim on the overclocking/PWM front - so you won't get a whole lot over its 3.0GHz base speed.

A 3 GHz Prescott isn't even a match for a late Socket 939 Athlon 64 in most apps, nevermind something with two cores!

Behold, the lowly $40, 2.2GHz Celeron E1500 crushing a Pentium 4 with a whopping 3.6GHz clock speed with DDR2 (LGA775 architecture) at stock speed.

If the OP is going to go through the trouble of buying a motherboard, memory, and video card for a system, they really, really, really should consider spending $40 at a local store and picking up even a lowly dual-core Celeron instead. Given the Celly's absurdly low power requirements, you can usually get 3GHz+ out of them without even a voltage increase on even the cheapest of motherboards. This puts it so far in front of any Pentium 4 that it just becomes silly.

For this case, there's no use for a kluge. If you already had the components necessary for a S-478 system, then I'd give an emphatic "why the heck not". But since you'd have monetary outlay, anyway, it's worth chucking onto the nearest sidewalk instead and finding any low-end LGA775 (C2D based, of course) or AM2 processor instead.

I had 2 Pentium 4s and 2 Celerons on 478; I could never learn to like them very much. Can you tell? :) When the A64 hit the streets, I was on it like a fly on the rim of a Mountain Dew can.
 
I had 2 Pentium 4s and 2 Celerons on 478; I could never learn to like them very much. Can you tell? When the A64 hit the streets, I was on it like a fly on the rim of a Mountain Dew can.
Same here :)

anyway, kind of like the idea, an old CPU that used to cost one arm and a shirt, why not use it for something it'd never done before, instead of putting in a landfill.:burn:
 
Yea, look in the want adds or ebay and see what's available and go with that..unless it is too costly.
If you already have the other parts, then go for it. You can't do much wrong with an Asus or Abit board of that generation...and if you're like me then you probably have most of the parts lying around already.
The P4 was good in it's day, but like others have said, the Athlon64 tromped all over the P4 when it was introduced and everybody and their uncles were jumping ship to get on the A64 bandwagon...except me (I was still trying to get the most out of my PIII) which when overclocked smoked the P4 Willamette...I still have the screenshot showing my PIII stomping the 1.2? 1.6? willy (the 1st one).
If you have any geeky friends that are into computers, they may have just the board you need...I don't have that many geeky friends in my area..I'm the uber geek around here :) so I'm the one who has all the "old School" junk that everyboday wants to rummage thru.
 
I am currently running my main desktop on that same chip, almost. Mine is C0 stepping
not E0.

As mentioned above, I wouldn't bother with it at all unless you have some fast
PC3200 or better ram and everything else you need for the system.

That being said, if you do find a good MB and set everything up right, it will make
a fine desktop for internet surfing and general use.

I actually got 2 of these running now, on refurbished SuperMicro motherboards I snagged
off ebay for around $50. P4SCT+II in this case. They will even overclock IF you got
very good ram. FSB adjust from 200-233, but no voltage adjustments.
I got 2gb of the OCZ platinum overclocking stuff, and it will boot and run at 230mhz
at the stock 2.5v no problems. Pass memtest86 etc fine. I usually run it a bit lower
than that however.

Note you can find faster AGP cards than that 6800gt.
Got a BFG 7800 with 256mb of DDR3 in one box that I bought new years ago.

E-bay is the only place I found any lately. 6 months ago when I was looking for a
way to repair my 2 P4 478 systems after both my Asus P4P800 boards died on me, I
found both the refurbished Supermicro boards and some very nice AGP nVidia GeForce
7950 GT cards on ebay.

Pretty sure they were a test run for some cards that never made it to market or
something like that. Run crazy cool and quiet compared to my BFG 7800 card, and
got 512mb ddr3. Overclock nicely also. Dunno if any are still out there or not.... They were going for about $130-150 bucks when I picked up mine.
I probably should have just upgraded completely instead of what I did, but
these boxes run everything I need fine. Newest game I play is Doom 3, and
it runs that at max settings with no problems.

Got the Windows 7 RC1 running on this machine right now, and with those parts, the
CPU is still the weak spot in my system, even overclocked.

Here is the cool Windows Experience Index data for this system:

Code:
Component Details Subscore Base score 
Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz 4.3 4.3 
  Determined by lowest subscore 
 
Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB 5.4 
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT  5.9 
Gaming graphics 1006 MB Total available graphics memory 5.8 
Primary hard disk 103GB Free (149GB Total) 5.9 
Windows 7 Ultimate 

System   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
  Manufacturer Supermicro 
  Model P4SCT 
  Total amount of system memory 2.00 GB RAM 
  System type 32-bit operating system 
  Number of processor cores 1 
  64-bit capable No 
 
Storage   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
  Total size of hard disk(s) 149 GB 
  Disk partition (C:) 103 GB Free (149 GB Total) 
  Media drive (D:) CD/DVD 
 
Graphics   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
  Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT 
  Total available graphics memory 1006 MB 
        Dedicated graphics memory 512 MB 
        Dedicated system memory 0 MB 
        Shared system memory 494 MB 
  Display adapter driver version 8.16.11.8691 
  Primary monitor resolution 1600x900 
  DirectX version DirectX 9.0 or better

Once last comment.....

My P4 can beat up your P4. :santa::beer::eek::screwy::drool:
 
Got the Windows 7 RC1 running on this machine right now, and with those parts, the
CPU is still the weak spot in my system, even overclocked.

Here is the cool Windows Experience Index data for this system:


Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz 4.3 4.3
Determined by lowest subscore

Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB 5.4
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT 5.9
Gaming graphics 1006 MB Total available graphics memory 5.8
Primary hard disk 103GB Free (149GB Total) 5.9
Windows 7 Ultimate


Once last comment.....

My P4 can beat up your P4. :santa::beer::eek::screwy::drool:

i know i'm new here but i got a "hobby" p4/nostalgia system i use for surfing and forum browsing that gets a decent vista experience score of around 5.0-5.9 with the p4 cpu being the lowest subscore of 4.1 (only 2.8E not overclocked)...
It's fine for Crysis at 1024x768 at 26-30 fps average (with agp3850 & 4 gb ram)...but that's as powerful as it gets... when it comes to encoding it takes a 22 min dvd sitcom 1.5 hours to complete in full xvid at max settings and it takes my other build (E8600 @ 4.0) only 22 minutes with half the ram...

What i'm saying is they have come a long way in just 5 or 6 years...

The P4 Prescott/Northwood is no slouch though...i mean at least they broke the 3.0 ghz mark and attempted a "virtual" second core...so it's similar in responsiveness and some multitasking, but obviously no where near....

I have an abit ic7 - G laying around and a 3.2E DO - i'm gonna make one last try for 4.0 gHZ then it's onto i7....
 
IMO no, it's not worth it.
If it was a 775 it might be, as then you could later put a core2duo into the same board.
Thing is, a p4 prescott 775 at 4ghz is a bit slower then a $20-30 e1200 at stock speed.
OC the e1200 (it'll do 2ghz easy, probably 2.6 to 3ghz with a halfway decent board) and it's no contest at all.
 
IMO no, it's not worth it.
If it was a 775 it might be, as then you could later put a core2duo into the same board.
Thing is, a p4 prescott 775 at 4ghz is a bit slower then a $20-30 e1200 at stock speed.
OC the e1200 (it'll do 2ghz easy, probably 2.6 to 3ghz with a halfway decent board) and it's no contest at all.

a cheap 3 ghz-capable dual core I have found is the E2160 conroe..
only 50-70.00 and capable of the same frequemcy as an E8600... of course it starts at 1.8, but once you get it to 2.8-3.0 GHZ you'll really se it come alive.. Plus it has a FULL 1 mb of cache....

it only took me 25 minutes to encode an XviD with this chip @ 3.0.... maybe worth a look...

but you'll need a good board...

ps: the e2160 stays cool so the stock cooler is fine for 3.0 ghz
 
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