Picking a new Northwood P4 478 socket CPU

[keakar]

Thank you btarunr! ASO helped me alot also. I enabled 512k and I noticed a little bit better response times from the processor.

i cant believe this wasnt addressed by one of those 99 updates windows forces on us?

 

[btarunr]

That's Microsoft for you

 

[Morgoth]

If anyone here has a Northwood(478 preferable), and CPUmark 2.1 please post your score. My Prescott shows a score of 4270.

i have a northwood 478 at 3ghz 800fsb if you give me a link to cpumark 2.1 i bench it for you at 3ghz and on 3,4ghz(oc)
soon i'm getting a p4p800 deluxe mainboard so i can clock this thing to 4ghz or even higher when i got my freezingray done (wc)

 

[keakar]

http://www.techzonez.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-5618.html

That post tells you how to go into the registry and check to make sure it is recognizing the L2 Cache correctly. It is worth a look at least, it doesn't hurt to check it to make sure the value is correct.

ok i got all the way to this point but how do i change the base from hexidecimal to decimal then what do i enter for 1mb cache and how should the line look after i do so?

 

[btarunr]

BTW, if the value was "0" before it could also be that the HAL detected your cache. This option is only to override the value the HAL has detected....just to make sure

 

[Darren]

I changed from a 478 Northwood 3.0Ghz(SL6WK) to a Prescott3.4Ghz(SL7E6). The Prescott performs horribly compared to the Northwood. I am saving for a new Northwood core, I want to get a 3.2 or 3.4 with/without the 30 capacitors. My original CPU was the SL6WK, and it was fantastic. I am running a Dell 4600i, and the max supported speed is 3.4Ghz. I would really like to get one of the 30 capacitor Northwood's at 3.0Ghz+, as I hear they are "failed" Gallatin cores. I would like to know what the performance will be like versus the regular 12 capacitor models. I won't be overclocking. On a final note: If anyone here has a Northwood(478 preferable), and CPUmark 2.1 please post your score. My Prescott shows a score of 4270.

Your wasting time and money. Although there will be a performance gain. The performance gain will not be noticed in reality when running applications or playing games, the fact is the Pentium 4 is dead.

Your better off finding a motherboard that will support AGP and PCI-x, that way you can use your current graphics card. Your better off getting a cheapo processor such as a Athlon 3800 x2, or core 2 duo E-range as they are less than $60, you will probably quadruple your performance over any P4 and have better future proofing.

 

[keakar]

Your wasting time and money. Although there will be a performance gain. The performance gain will not be noticed in reality when running applications or playing games, the fact is the Pentium 4 is dead.

Your better off finding a motherboard that will support AGP and PCI-x, that way you can use your current graphics card. Your better off getting a cheapo processor such as a Athlon 3800 x2, or core 2 duo E-range as they are less than $60, you will probably quadruple your performance over any P4 and have better future proofing.

although your point is valid, we are talking about getting more out of what you have now not weather we should upgrade.

 

[btarunr]

Oh, acperience7, by switching back to Northwood from Prescott, you'll be losing out on SSE3 instruction sets. FPU + SSE3 is an awesome combo for SIMD, exploited by many processes such as encoders, game engines, etc. CPUMark doesn't evaluate this

 

[keakar]

BTW, if the value was "0" before it could also be that the HAL detected your cache. This option is only to override the value the HAL has detected....just to make sure

my value is 0x00000000 (0) so i guess mine is already set for 1mb cache?

 

[btarunr]

my value is 0x00000000 (0) so i guess mine is already set for 1mb cache?

Perhaps, but I'd suggest that you key in 1024, just to override the HAL and be real sure your cache is put to use. "0" means either HAL : "Yes, detected" ; "No, there's no cache I can use"

 

[peach1971]

1024 = 0x00000400 (1024)

 

[btarunr]

1024 = 0x00000400 (1024)

I know. This DWORD stays 0 also when the cache is detected. Open your registry if you find 0, don't panic.

This DWORD value is only to override the cache size as detected by the HAL irrespective of what the HAL detected.

 

[keakar]

1024 = 0x00000400 (1024)

so am i supposed to make it read like this? 1024 = 0x00000400 (1024)

or am i supposed to make it read like this? 0x00000000 (1024)

or like this? 0x00000400 (1024)

whats the 400 all about?

 

[btarunr]

0x00000400 is the hexadecimal equivalent of 1024.

Bottom line : Set it to 1024 (aka hex 400) and be done with it!

 

[keakar]

400 is the hexadecimal equivalent of 1024.

Bottom line : Set it to 1024 (aka hex 400) and be done with it!

ok but which number do i use? 0x00000000 (1024) or 0x00000400 (1024) or 0x00000400 (0)

 

[acperience7]

i have a northwood 478 at 3ghz 800fsb if you give me a link to cpumark 2.1 i bench it for you at 3ghz and on 3,4ghz(oc)
soon i'm getting a p4p800 deluxe mainboard so i can clock this thing to 4ghz or even higher when i got my freezingray done (wc)

CPUmark2.1Thanks in advance. I appreciate it. Thanks to everyone else as well for all the replies. I know what I need to know now.

 

[btarunr]

ok but which number do i use? 0x00000000 (1024) or 0x00000400 (1024) or 0x00000400 (0)

Follow the screenshot I for which I took pains to post

 

[imperialreign]

Your wasting time and money. Although there will be a performance gain. The performance gain will not be noticed in reality when running applications or playing games, the fact is the Pentium 4 is dead.

ain't dead yet! She might be a little . . . antiquated, but still capable of playing modern games fairly well on a good setup.


I still plan on snagging a Quad sometime early next year, though - but this P4 has been fairly capable of holding me over, and will end up powering a workhorse rig once I'm done with it.

 

[keakar]

Follow the screenshot I for which I took pains to post

i fixed it now, sorry for being so stupid, i missed the double click and was trying to type it in manually lol.

thanks for all your help and your patience with me. i just hope it helped my speed

again thank you very much

 

[keakar]

Update: i did see a very noticable improvement in speed and response time for my computer.

thanks to btarunr for that most usefull and informative post, it helped me and im sure many others as well

 

[btarunr]

I am awesome

 

[Morgoth]

here are the benches

 

[newtekie1]

ain't dead yet! She might be a little . . . antiquated, but still capable of playing modern games fairly well on a good setup.

Amen to that!

Some people thing that just because something doesn't score the top in benchmarks, that means it is dead or useless. I hate it. Hell, I played Bioshock on a Celeron D, and the Celeron D was perfectly capable of the job.

 

[eidairaman1]

nice info

 

[lemonadesoda]

PLEASE CONSIDER AN ASROCK Conroe865PE or similar. That will allow u to use your existing PSU, DDR memory and AGP vcard, but with a PROPER CPU.

I moved to Quad 6600 with AGP FireGL-X3 and 2GB DDR. The performance improvement is unbelieveable. Not just an "overclock" gain, but a completely different system. Search this forum for threads with "conroe865pe"

Note that CPU mark is a SINGLE THREADED test. When I look at task manager, only 1 of 4 cores is being used. That means, the CPU is actually 4x faster than the numbers given here, in multithreaded applications. See how it PWNS the P4EE.