Should I wait for Prescott?

How long will it take before I can get my hands on Prescott at reasonable price, I'm Canadian so I would buy Prescott at Max $300 US so is it worth a wait or should I go with new HT core coming out with 2.4 ghz, another Question I have is if I get one of Springdale or the other board will I be able to make an upgrade to Prescott in the future from HT core coming out.


Big question I have is I see new features coming out in Prescott, will it be totally new generation of CPU's considering last CPU I bought at 450 mhz was just out dated as most games at minimum require 500 mhz speed.

We probably won't see mainstream Prescotts for 200USD or less until the end of the year. The good news is that Springdale is the official platform for Prescott, so you could buy a board now and be 99% sure it will work it (assuming the manufacturer doesn't mess up the bios).

As for what you should do, I think it really depends on how in-need of a new system you are. Going for a 2.4 with HT and Springdale in May would be fairly inexpensive. Then you can always upgrade that to a 3.6Ghz Prescott pretty cheaply in late-spring of 2004.

if you aren't looking for 3+ Ghz then i would wait for prescott and get a chip with HT and the 800mhz bus. if you ARE then definately wait awhile until prices drop

welcome to the forums,

how about this?

wait for the new springdale mobo...
you can use it for the 533mhz cpu's and the new 800mhz chips with HT coming out about the same time.

get a new C1 2.4b 533mhz chip...
they OC great. you may be able to hit 3.0ghz with just the retail HS and no overvolting.
with a slight overvolt, you may be able to hit 3.4ghz.
the cost is about $185.00 US dollors.

don't forget to get two sticks of fast memory...corsair xms3200 is what I would sugjest.

you'll now have a system that is fast, and working with full memory bandwith.

you can OC with the 800mhz chips that have HT, yet you may not get a faster system.
first, HT will only work with a few progies...like 3dmax.

video games, photoshop, and most other progies will have no effect with HT....so why have it?

also, if you OC with the new 800mhz chips, you'll have to use the 4/3 mem ratio...
now your chip will be bandwith limited.(the memory will not be fast enough to keep up with the speed of the chip )

you may also have to wait for the slower speed HT chips....
maybe the 2.4 800mhz chip will come out two months after the first, high speed HT chips.

just a few thoughts.

mica

micamica1217 said:

video games, photoshop, and most other progies will have no effect with HT....so why have it?

Click to expand...

Actually Photoshop _will_ take advantage of HT. But for most users the real benefit of HT comes from running more than one program at once (e.g. running viruscan or Nero while playing a game).

NookieN said:

Actually Photoshop _will_ take advantage of HT. But for most users the real benefit of HT comes from running more than one program at once (e.g. running viruscan or Nero while playing a game).

Click to expand...

it realy helps in photoshop???
wow, at 3.0ghz, I just cant see it running any faster.

anyway, not to nitpick... but who runs nero and plays UT2k3 at the same time??? or any other game for that matter.

but if you must have it, HT could be nice.

mica

micamica1217 said:

it realy helps in photoshop???
wow, at 3.0ghz, I just cant see it running any faster.

anyway, not to nitpick... but who runs nero and plays UT2k3 at the same time??? or any other game for that matter.

but if you must have it, HT could be nice.

mica

Click to expand...

Photoshop is dual threaded (is that the proper term?)

so in theory...yes it would

Also, i didnt knwo the springdale boards would run prescotts...thats great news

timmyqwest,

I'm ordering the Z680's around the 15th of this month....
maybe newegg or googlegear.

I tryed them out at bestbuy, they sound nice.
yet it had crappy music playing.

does it realy sound good for DVD's and games(better then the klipsh's)???

I need "BOOOOM, BOOOOM" !!!

thanks
mica