difference between 3.2C and E

[geestring]

Pentium 4 3.2C GHz 512KB cache RETAIL BOX S.O. $358
Pentium 4 3.2E GHz 1MB cache RETAIL BOX $270



whats the difference between these processors? ones relatively more expensive. Which one should i get

Cdn dollars.

 

[Sucka]

The "C" is a Northwood, which is older tech. It is no longer in production, meaning supply is low, hence the pretty penny. It runs cooler, has a shorter pipeline, and less l2 cache. The "E" is a Prescott, longer pipeline, but more cache. It is Intel's "latest" technology (besides 775 obviously, yet still Prescott). It runs much warmer than Northwoods. The pressy's start to spread their wings and make up for longer pipeline at around 3.7~GHz. It would be my choice if cooled properly.

 

[geestring]

yea, so i guess it wouldnt be worth it to pay alot more just for a cooler 3.2C.
I only have a zalman cnps7000A-cu, i think its only meant for 3.2ghz and lower.

 

[Sucka]

At first it didn't make any sense to go with a Prescott (like the first few months it came out) but now, they are starting to really show what they can do. Not to say they're perfect, but i prefer my Prescott's to my old Northwoods i owned. There are tons of bencmarks around for you to compare and make your own decision based on that. I certainly wouldn't drop more money on an older Northwood over a Prescott at this point, esspecially since the Northwood is like 2 generations back now, coming up on 3 (Prescott 478, Prescott 775, Dothan).

 

[Sucka]

Here's a comparison. This is PCMark 04, a CPU/Memory dependent benchmark. The light grey is my old Northwood system at 3.9GHz (6 months ago maybe) and the dark grey is my current Prescott system at 3.9GHz. Very close to each other. There are much better benchmarks to compare then this, but just an idea of how close they really are to one another.

 

[geestring]

will my zalman take the heat?

I think i should get new ram too

 

[Sucka]

The all coper Zalman heatsink is a good one, not sure what model that one is. And looking at your sig, the PSU looks like the weak spot for a pressy. They draw a lot more power, and need a good PSU accordingly. Not to mention, i wouldn't be running 3 sticks of memory, takes away the dual channel, probably not worth the extra memory, 1024 should be ample for all tasks.

 

[geestring]

yea, they're cheap ram.

a prescott cant take that much power?

 

[aNTiChRisT]

oh yes.

Also prescotts load a lot onto your power circuitry, mosfets. Look on your motherboard for little silicon chips about 1cmx1cm if you can sink those up, then i would.

~t0m

 

[Sucka]

yea, they're cheap ram.

a prescott cant take that much power?

The prescott put a lot of stress on the motherboard and PSU. You need to cool your motherboard and have nice rails on your PSU accordingly.

 

[geestring]

eh, well I just bought my setup... case,psu,mobo....
I dont want to get a new psu, it should suffice for now?
I probably wont overclock until i can afford new ram.

So my setup can handle the 3.2E for stock use

 

[coil]

Just run at stock speed and be happy

Dont bother getting more ram, save your pennies for your next system.

DDR will be phased out with DDR2. AMD will use DDR2 also next year as their newer stepping 90nm Winchesers will have DDR2 support (disabled for now) on the memory controller.

Your system will be able to run all the latet games atm Heck im even on a xp2200 and 9600xt and i top the frags in hl2dm ;D

 

[geestring]

and i just got my motherboard, it doesn support ddr2?
only pciexpress supports it?

 

[Sucka]

Neither.

 

[coil]

Nope, your board doesnt have dd2 or pci express, thats why its best to be happy with what you have atm and then wiat for the next big upgrade which will probably involve changing everything :s