Limitations of the new Northwoods...

Since Intel released the new northwoods, I've kept asking myself this question. I don't know if it's already been discussed here, but anyways....

If the new P4 has a 133Mhz FSB, this means that the 'new' 2.4Ghz has its multiplier set to 18, while the 'old' 2.4Ghz has its multiplier set to 24. Both multipliers are obviously locked, so, doesn't this mean that the 'old' 2.4Ghz has much more potential in terms of overclocking?

Well that would be true aside from the fact that they are all from the same stepping and therefore will not go beyond 2700-2900 on high end air/moderate water. If a new stepping came out, *and* the stepping gave you a bigger o/c'ed ceiling - chances are you could overclock higher with a 2.4/400 than a 2.4/533 *if* your motherboard was limited by FSB by lack of dividers, ram not able to run that high, or even mobo not being stable at say 150+FSB.

That is why you see the overclocking wonder that is the 1.6a. The 1.6a reaches 133+ on a regular basis..often at default voltage. Also, the "old" you say is just the 100FSB version whereas the "new" is the 133FSB version. Back in the PIII coppermines days it was just like the "E" for 100FSB and "EB" for the 133FSB versions.

Oh, and none of what I said applies to the 2.533 because that one went thru' an optical reduction of some kind. 10% reduction in die size should mean something though. Less heat? less space? less cost to produce? better overclocking potential? I have no idea=)

I see your point, but, while a 50% overclock for the 1.6a meant 150Mhz, the new ones will have to do something like 200Mhz to achieve the same increase. And even then, their multiplier will limit them. Besides, how realistic is 200Mhz FSB..??

Pentium 4 2.4Ghz - 24x100 ~ 24x133 = 3192 Mhz
Pentium 4 2.4Ghz - 18x133 ~ 18x166 = 2988 Mhz

...or I could be just fumbling in the dark here...

200FSB is hardly realistic unless you do some extreme cooling. Vapochill and above type of cooling.

MospeadasDark said:

200FSB is hardly realistic unless you do some extreme cooling. Vapochill and above type of cooling.

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i agree totally, unless you have an amd setup. for example, with air, i could run my 1.6a at 2609, stable, while with the vapochill, i can go up to 155 fsb, 2488, but the cpu clocks down big time, so i dont know if it is the vapochill unit that needs to be replaced or something else, nevertheless, right now i am at 2240, with killer mem bandwidth, and totally stable. the computer has been running non stop for almost 2 weeks now, and when i am not using it, it is crunching seti. i do however believe that i could run close to 200 fsb with my th72 and some 1066 rambus, unfortunately my pc800 took a sh** and i need to send out my th72 today for replacement but hopefully soon.

I see we all agree on how realistic 200Mhz FSB is, but still people...my conclusion?? Is it fair to say that the 2.4Ghz PC400 is a better buy than the 2.4Ghz PC533??

In terms of oc that is...

hmm that gives me something to think on.

There are places showing 3ghz oc on the 2.4b with air cooling.
167 fsb is 3ghz with a 2.4b.
If you buy online you can be sure a 2.4b will be a recent chip.
The increased fsb will give better memory performance than running 2.4a the same speed at a lower fsb as long as you have memory that can keep up.

Now this is the kind of discussion I was looking for when I just opened my thread on the P4 2.4a this morning!!!!

It will be here Saturday morning, let's see where it can go!

trenchypost said:

I see we all agree on how realistic 200Mhz FSB is, but still people...my conclusion?? Is it fair to say that the 2.4Ghz PC400 is a better buy than the 2.4Ghz PC533??

In terms of oc that is...

Click to expand...

i would buy the 533 chip if i HAD to get one of these. however, if i had to buy a chip, it would be a 1.6A.