• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

Need Help Picking a CPU

H

Hilltopsurfer

New Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2007
Messages
5 (0.00/day)
Came to this group as a result of googling a processor I was investigating and thought it might be a good place to get some help. I will also try to answer question but I don't think I am as tech smart as you guys. Anyway, here is my problem:

I have been running a celeron chip for years, in a system that I built. Yes, I had help picking out the processor then too. Can now afford to upgrade to P4 and am confused as to what to get.

My motherboard is MSI MS-6728 which is 865PE Neo2 Platinum. The book says it will support
P4 Northwood/Prescott Socket 478, up to 3.4 or higher, FSB 400 for Northwood only, 533, 800MHz for Prescott.

Well the above sounds easy until you start comparing it to the language on ebay, then I get lost. I have found the following on ebay, cause you can't get this chip in the stores anymore:

SL7CH, a 13 micron chip with 1mb L2 cashe and 2mb L3 cashe
SL7PP, a 90 micron chip with 1mb L2, no mention of L3; says it is extreme chip
SL8K4, a 90 micron chip with 1mb of L2
SL7E6, 90 micro with 1mb L2

I guess my first question is will my pc use either the 13 or 90 micron chip??
Is 1 better than the other? WHY?

Could someone advise me by putting these cpus in 1234 order as to what I should attempt to buy and sort of explain why one is better than the other??

I really appreciate your help. Hilltopsurfer.:confused:
 
13 shouold be 130 it is in reference to the size of the core 130nm is 40nm larger than the 90nm chips the 130nm clock worse are older and put out more heat.


this is a good chip for what you have
http://cgi.ebay.com/Pentium-4-P4-3-...ryZ80143QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

or if you want new here is one off newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116027
little slower but a light oc will fix that

though i would recomend either jumping to AM2 or LGA775 as 478 is outdated and well slow since it only supports netburst based chips
 
sl7ch is a great chip, but terribly expensive. In fact, you can get a new lga775 motherboard and a new intel core2duo chip for less....sl7pp as well.

sl7ch - the top 478 chip - has best OC potential iirc, but it'll cost so much it's not worth it, and might not work in the board 100% (I have the same MSI board)
sl7pp - 2nd best 478 chip, another great chip, like ^ supposedly a great OC-able chip, also pretty spendy
other 2 are about the same

I think these are only worth the money if you are locked into a 478 mobo.
 
Last edited:
More Help on Processor Selection

My thanks again TUngsten and cdawall for your input.
The ECS board is out of stock though perhaps viable elsewhere. With processor I would be at about $112 plus shipping, and I thought I could update my processor for about the same money, at least the ones I was looking at.

I was wanting to stay with my current (yes outdated) MSI board for several reasons, first I am well integrated in my current uses and did not want to have to do a fresh install of XP Pro; I also have a number of proprietary programs that require permission to reload and online verification. I do a great deal of work for the karaoke and dj community.

My primary need or reason for the upgrade was to get the faster processor and 800 FSB so the system would be more stable in transferring really large files to external drives, but the rest of the computer really meets my needs. IE 1 gig ram, dual plextors, dual video, 2 hard drives that total 800 gig.

THAT SAID......., I am curious. Do you both suggest upgrading to socket 775 because it is newer or because it is better?? Would a P4 3.0 775 with 2mb L2 cashe really be faster than a P4 3.0 or 3.4 Socket 478 in my old motherboard??? I am not a serious overclocker, just need more stability to do my work. More comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Hilltopsurfer
 
I'd avoid the p4 775 and go straight for a core2duo, the difference is staggering.

Basically, (and this is why I upgraded from the same mobo&3.2g p4) I think that the net performance gain you'll get in going to the 3.4ee (either sl7ch or sl7pp) is incredibly minimal compared to what you'll gain by going for a 775 board + core2, even the lowcost e4300 chip. I'd pass right over the lga775 p4 line.

The new board will be able to take the newest fastest intel chips (which are really dirt cheap right now) for a while into the future, and the performance will be a serious upgrade that will last you for some time.

It's also a very good idea to do a fresh (re)installation of XP if you haven't in a long while (or ever). Ram is dirt cheap now also, so overall this is as good a time as I've seen in the last decade to get some really good upgrades that'll really last you a few years for a minimal amount of $.

For less than $500 you can get a totally killer lga775 mobo, 2gb of very nice ddr2, and a core2 chip. And you will notice a serious difference in everything you do, whether its gaming, graphic design, video, audio, you name it.
 
tungsten is right a core 2 even the e2140 clocked at 3ghz would kill any p4 you need to get out the old skool pc and get yours self a quick pc ;) saying that i still have a 3.06 prescott laying around in a laptop doing nothing
 
we didn't criticize the mobo just a core 2 upgrade would be more logical
 
heh that link shows the chip to be out of stock, jtleon
 
I am not sure on the specs on each chip i don't keep up with intel (or AMD even) What i do is look for the highest L2 size fastest clock speed and the smallest NM with in my price ranger than after i find one that looks good i google it and come here or XFN and ask about it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top