P4 Willamette vs Celeron Northwood...

[Lancelot]

Maybe this helps the ongoing debate about P4-Celerons and 'how-bad-the-P4-Willamette-is-when-compared-to'. Average SETI WU times tell it all, both rigs running WinXPpro SP1 and SETI CLC3.03. The Celeron system used to be my main rig before I upgraded to the system in my signature. The Willamette system is what I recently upgraded my kid's rig to, coming from a P3-667. Both have been running SETI for a few weeks, the Willamette will continue to do so in aid of the overclockers.com team ofcourse!

P4 Willamette 1.7Ghz 400FSB, Asus P4B-MX i845, 512MB Infineon PC133-222. CPU running default, RAM @3:4 133Mhz CL2-2-2-6. Average WU time: 4 to 4.5 hours

Celeron Northwood 2.0Ghz 400FSB, Asus P4PE i845PE, 512MB Samsung PC2700-333. CPU OCed to 2.66Ghz 533FSB, RAM @4:5 166Mhz (DDR333) CL2.5-3-3-6.
Average WU time: 5 to 6 hours

I have always been fairly optimistic about the P4-based Celerons but I had no idea they were doing this bad. Eventhough the Willamette has twice the L2, she isn't OCed and has to deal with SDRAM for crying out loud!

 

[stan03]

nice.... thats a big diff.

YGPM

 

[c627627]

I figure why start a new thread when there's this old one. The two boxes in front of me are


• s478 Northwood Celeron @ 2.6 GHz on Asus P4GE-MX mobo
It is an eMachines box, but maybe BIOS upgrade through: http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=JdzKwFSqhlt5OPiW

vs.

• s478 Willamette Pentium 4 @ 1.5 GHz on Asus P4B-LX mobo
It is a Sony Vaio box.


Haven't really dealt with overclocking retail boxes, can they be? Help me choose the best combo. Which CPU on which mobo b/w the two and I hear there are pin mods for these (are they for voltages?) Should I use non-retail BIOS to enable oc?


Do they both use same RAM? Should I get a <$20 heat sink, help me get the best out of these two. They are for internet + word processing only and similar, no gaming.

 

[jazztrumpet216]

I figure why start a new thread when there's this old one. The two boxes in front of me are


• s478 Northwood Celeron @ 2.6 GHz on Asus P4GE-MX mobo
It is an eMachines box, but maybe BIOS upgrade through: http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=JdzKwFSqhlt5OPiW

vs.

• s478 Willamette Pentium 4 @ 1.5 GHz on Asus P4B-LX mobo
It is a Sony Vaio box.


Haven't really dealt with overclocking retail boxes, can they be? Help me choose the best combo. Which CPU on which mobo b/w the two and I hear there are pin mods for these (are they for voltages?) Should I use non-retail BIOS to enable oc?


Do they both use same RAM? Should I get a <$20 heat sink, help me get the best out of these two. They are for internet + word processing only and similar, no gaming.

Boy, I really have to brush the cobwebs off the old noggin for this one.

First, OCing retail boxes USUALLY isn't met with much success. Not every board back then enabled BIOS OCing (though most did) and the absence of dip switches complicated things. If you can find a BIOS, perhaps from Asus or a 3rd party, that might be your best bet. Not sure where you'd find one 7 years later. Most pin-mods are for voltages, though there are a couple to bump the 100MHz FSB to 133MHz. The downside to doing this though, is that you have no idea if the processors can handle 133MHz FSB (I would venture to guess that neither of these would be able to do it- that would put your Willamette right at 2Ghz and the 2.6Ghz at nearly 3.5). You also don't know if the boards can handle a PCI/AGP bus lock, so you could be running those devices pretty far out of spec.

Second, the Willamette CPU is not going to OC worth a darn. They only went up to 2 Ghz stock (IIRC) and getting them to OC past about 1.8 was quite the challenge. Also, (again, IIRC) that motherboard in the Sony uses PC133 RAM. That's a massive handicap to a P4 CPU that was originally designed to run 400MHz RDRAM.

The E-machines box might be your better bet. The Northwood CPUs could usually hit 2.8-3 GHz with moderate cooling. Also, that board uses DDR. Though it won't be setting any benchmark records, the data throughput of the DDR machine will be noticeably better than the PC133 machine. If you can find a stock Asus BIOS for this machine and install it (or just replace the chip), you might have a serviceable machine.

In either case, I would invest in a heatsink. Good luck. I don't know how successful you'll be, but it's worth a shot.

 

[Evilsizer]

from what i have read the second mobo you listed has a max of 400mhz fsb. meaning any ocing if it can be done wont be much. you have a better bet of ocing the first computer you listed. that is assuming you can find a "asus" bios and not the OEM one that is installed. also you have to worry about the cpu's fsb as well since the highest that board supports is 533mhz. what does cpuz tell you about the cpu?

 

[c627627]

Thanks friends. Asus BIOS is downloadable for the first mobo:
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=JdzKwFSqhlt5OPiW

It appears I will not be doing any mods per jazztrumpet216's advice.


I'll keep an eye for heatsink deals but the plan is to flash to official Asus BIOS and go from from 2.6 Northwood Celeron to maybe 3 GHz with stock cooling for now.

I'll find out what CPU-Z says.

 

[{PMS}fishy]

The Northwood Cellery is defiantly the better bet. I'm really racking my brain to try and remember hardware from 5+ years ago. I hate to say it but you might be better off with something newer even if these are free. I'd venture a guess that even an Intel Atom might be faster than both of these boxes at considerably lower power requirements.

 

[theflyingrat]

Good lord, a Willamette P4 with PC133. I didn't know anyone had those around anymore! I remember everyone joking about how silly-slow those were in 2001, nevermind today!

I'm with these guys - the Celeron should be able to make up good enough clock speed (3GHz or thereabout) to overcome its crippling architectural and cache-related deficiencies compared to the more cache-rich Willamette. That is, if the BIOS will flash to a non-OEM one.

I definitely wouldn't spend any money on a cooler for that Celeron, though. First, without a ton of voltage and insanely high clock speeds, it shouldn't be necessary. Second, it'd be a wholesale waste of money, considering just how tragically slow the Northwood Cellie is compared to (literally) anything still on the market. Extra cooling, even if it only cost $10, wouldn't buy you more than 100MHz or so... and 100MHz out of one of those things just isn't worth anything.

 

[c627627]

Agreed, and much obliged.


I guess we also corrected the original poster. Celeron Northwood is better.


And by the way, what's the best socket 478 overclocker?

 

[jason4207]

I doubt it's the best, but I had my 478 Prescott P4 3.0C running 3.9GHz 24/7 for several years. It's an 800MHz FSB CPU, though.

 

[c627627]

Yes, I forgot about motherboard compatibilty.
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=JdzKwFSqhlt5OPiW
is what the motherboard is.

And of course this thread is now about general knowledge, not building the best machine. I know the counteranswers on the AMD side for this era but not for Intel so thanks guys.

 

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

The Willy was so bad that an overclocked PIII @1g would smoke the willy in most applications according to Sandra...the only difference came with the extra mmx and sse instructions that the P4 has over the PIII...but this is about willys vs cellies.

 

[Evilsizer]

The Willy was so bad that an overclocked PIII @1g would smoke the willy in most applications according to Sandra...the only difference came with the extra mmx and sse instructions that the P4 has over the PIII...but this is about willys vs cellies.

even beat by the tually based [email protected]. heh, i still got one 1.2ghz tuallyron in a Abit st-6 with 1gig micron pc133-cas 2 ram.

 

[c627627]

I actually remember this. Initial Pentium IVs were "worse" than Pentium IIIs.


What is the best overclocker that would fit into this mobo http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=JdzKwFSqhlt5OPiW

CPU-Z said it was a 100 not a 133. It was a 26 x 100 Northwood Celeron in it.

 

[Evilsizer]

well since the mobo the northy is in does support 133fsb. why no use a 100 to 133 fsb pin mod on the cpu? wither or not the cpu will handle 3.4ghz on stock v is up in the air.

 

[c627627]

Ooh that's a tall order on stock voltage and stock heatsink. Don't want to be blowing stuff up on someone else's computer.

I'm flashing it to official Asus BIOS, that should give it some OC options... Intel locks multis on these I take it? But are smaller FSB increments available on mobos like Asus?

Or are multis unlocked and FSB locked?

 

[Evilsizer]

they are only multi locked...

 

[c627627]

OK thanks, locked at 26. So upping the FSB to 115 should give me 3 GHz.

This isn't a 100 vs 133 only deal I hope.

 

[jason4207]

Is the multi locked downward as well?

 

[Evilsizer]

Is the multi locked downward as well?

socket 478 P4's do not feature EIST, only the mobile S478's did. even using one mobile p4 in desktop mobo's stuck the multi at the lowest being 12x.