Processor upgrade.

[Ait'al]

Does anyone know the best proccessor to upgrade for a 478. Is there a definite best 478? I was wondering if there were any good ones after the prescotts that were worth getting as a last upgrade for an old pre pci-e system? A new egg review from sometime back for a 3.0e, or 3.2, or something, said at some release was overclocking really high and it seemed like a good one to look into but I don't know if they are even available anymore. And it had some more upgrades on it than the first presscotts. I don't know which one it was though or what the upgrades were. I'm on the P4C800-E board from asus. It supports 400/533/800 mhz. I saw alot of stuff come out that was both 775 and 478 but I never knew if any would be better to get than the 3.2 or 3.4s that already existed or much about what changed since the pci-e came out. What new things should I look for for a last upgrade. I want to find the best. And is there anything worth getting as far as support beyondas mmx, sse, sse2, etc or what is best now to keep up with newer computers. I was wondering about new ones with higher caches but what do I want to look for in the new proccessors(the newer 478s). I've seen some with higher caches for the 478 but I don't know how far they went or if they are worth getting. I'm guessing there are quite a bit of changes that have been going on. I've also seen some that are smaller than the 90nm that I though were for the 478. Are those better now too. They all seem pretty ineteresting but I have no idea what I should go for.
And if anyone knows off the top of there heads what can the P4C800 go up to. And on top of it did any of them overclock well? Or is that worth anything?

[Sentrosi]

Gah Ait'al! The use of paragraphs would help a lot!

Because I've only had one cup of coffee this morning I'll tell you what I plan on doing in the next couple of months. My system specs are the following;

AMD FX-55 socket 939 w/ Thermalright XP-120 + Sunon 120mm fan
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum nForce3
2Gb PC3500 Ram
GeForce 6600GT 128MB
Ultra X-Connect 500W modular power supply

I'm going to try to sell those off in the next couple of months to build this;
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3
XFX GeForce 7900GT or a similarly priced DX10 card when I'm ready to upgrade
Intel D805 Smithfield or the lower end Conroe when it comes out.
G.Skill DDR2 PC26400

Right now, the linked items will run me a total of around $650. You'll notice that I haven't put in a Power Supply yet, as I'm still shopping around for one to keep an eye on. I'm leaning toward an Antec Neo because I absolutely love modular power supplies. Keeps my case looking neat. I'm also thinking that I could still use this power supply for a bit.

In answer to your questions though...start looking for a complete upgrade similar to what I'm doing. The ROI (Return on Investment) if you go with an additional upgrade to an aging system will be sizeably less unless you do a complete upgrade. If you want suggestions, don't hesitate to ask. I love spending other peoples money.

[Rbstr]

sent don't go with the Pentium D, your upgrading to a year behind where we're at now.

Get a core 2 man, even at $100 more I think its worth it for 64 bit, far less heat output ect.

[Sentrosi]

Yeah, the D was there if, like I was ready to upgrade tomorrow. It was just going to be a temp proc until the C2Duos came down in price a bit.

[Ait'al]

I did that and I still have a 2.4 celron and a gig of value select Corsair memory. Which I'm guessing isn't that bad since everyone started jumping all over it a few months or something after I got it.(The RAM BTW.)

The Problem is not ammount of money or time finding a proccessor is ever going to make up for the way I abuse a computer. I'll still end up locking it up over and over again. I don't think they are that far into being able to multitask that efficiently.

[Sentrosi]

Soooooo, what are you asking about then?

[Ait'al]

I don't know. I'm thinking of finding the right Overclocking setup now and just trying to get it up as high as possibly. But I don't know how to go about finding the right stuff. Someone said they got a 1:1 ratio it gave their ram a 20***37; increase and the compter worked really well from then. I think it was from a3.2 or 3.0. I don't know if it was Prescott or Northwood. I have no idea what steppings to look for or which ram to get to be able to do it. I still have the P4C800 So i'm guessing it's not a hard board to find the info for. But I need help figureing out how to make sure I have the absolutely right hardware to get the right overclock to make it work.

This is the Forum: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1030454852

Any Idea what would be good for the P4C800E to get a nice Overclock? I barely remember anything about how to calculate stuff to find the ratio. What would the steppings do to the overclock. Is it really that big of a deal? I saw something about the E0 coming out but I'm guessing that is for the 775 and I'm guessing it's not that important for an overclock. Or is the new thermal stuff supposed to be good for this. I don't know really anything about it. I just saw something on it about an hour ago in a search.

The P4C800E supports 400/533/800mhz buss speeds. The ram can go to 4gb with 4 slots of 184pin DDr PC 3200/2700/2100 (but I think actually goes higher for overclocking) and is dual obviously. It's the 875P MCH and ICH5R, both Intel.

Is the 500Mhz stuff easiest for a good ratio? 4000 I think. I think that was the max the board supported.

Edit: "

Soooooo, what are you asking about then?"

I think I was just worried they wouldn't be powerful enough either way for how I use one. But I think that's just a matter of what I have on it and probly not since it is all bent on multitasking now. But I don't think I can do a new system so It doesn't matter. If I did I would probably wait untill the better 64bit stuff comes out.

Though, on that topic, will it all be compatible with 32bit. Or are the systems now likely to be more compatible with both 32 and 64 bit than the later ones?

[Ait'al]

I'm basically at trying to figure out wht to get to overclock with a 1:1 ratio. 800mhz board would be 200mhz base right? Sorry about confusing you earlier. I didn't type that out very clearly.

I forget how to get a 1:1 ratio. I was reading about the 3.2's or 3.0's being better overclockers but I have read the 3.4 prescotts overclocking really high also. I'm trying to figure out what hardware to get. Alot of the forum conversations seem a little old so i'm not sure what to go with. If the 3.4 can overclock high I would rather get that but I still have to pick which one. I didn't know if there was a version of it that was better to get, like the E, or a certain revision if it matters. I thought maybe one of those overclocked better and I could pick the right one ahead and not have to worry about not getting a good proccessor. Same with the ram. If you know anything any help would be very appreciated.

It's fun looking stuff back up again. It's been to long since I've done anything with it.


2. The other thing I was worried about was if I only got one duel set of ram and then upgraded after I overclocked (if I could) at 1:1 would the P4C800 change the frequency and ruin that if I latter filled all four slots. I can't remember If that was whenever you filled all four slots only, if it was past a certain amount like the full 4 gigs, or past a certain frequency like it sounded like I read the other day(Though I get the feeling that wasn't what it meant.).

[Ait'al]

I think I'll post this in the dark crevaces of the tech forum.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Intel-Penti...QQcmdZViewItem

Hows this for a processor? Think it's worth getting for what it is? Anyone want it. I'm not sure If I'll bid on it or not. I'm waiting for a 3.4 EE on ebay tosee how much higher it will go or thinking of getting a 3.4 E for 138$ on a normal site or this. Would this be better to get than the Prescott. I know it might be fun to have just to have if what he says is true. But I'm sure the Northwood won't Overclock as much if I decide to do it. And I'm not sure If i can afford both. Yet!

[Sentrosi]

I'd stick with the Northwood.

[Ait'al]

Update!

I don't have the money for this but I'm waiting on a chance to just get an EE 3.4 Prescott. I thought it would be the best solution since i can overclock it without worrying about what I want to do with it.(It has an unlocked multiplier If I'm not mistaken) Or the equivilant Northwood also to compare it if they are both cheap enough. At this point the cheaper the better. Unless anyone has anything that would convince me other wise.(I'm not against it. Just need enough info.) I'm still planning on going to college for either hardware repair type degrees, or programming, or both. I like both alot so I may have to do both, especially, since, they should go together pretty well. And ,Especially, depending on what i do with them or what else I might want to get after them. I just can't seem to settle on one or the other. I think I'd love to do both too much. I don't think I'll feel like i've gone far enough if I don't cover atleast those two whole basis. And it's probably good if I do atleast that much if I'm going to do anything anything in computers anyway. Or atleast anything I might want to do in computers.(atleast from how I feel about it. Not neccasarily realistically. (That or I'm trying to set myself up for writing for game or operating systems eventually. 8))

The other thing I'm looking at is a possible video card replacement. I think it or the ram is wearing out. I haven't done anything to what the real culprit is but I have been wondering what would be good replacemnt if I have to. With the DDR 2 cards i saw I didn't know if there were any with paticularly good performance that i could replace it with(or if it didn't matter with an agp card because of any limitations) or if i should stick with a card that would be a pure example of the last hardware. I don't know what I would be using this for later. So, I don't know if it would be useful to go with one or the other. I didn't know if I ever start programing If it would be useful to have any of those paticular cards around for the hardware, or if it matters(or if any others could be useful for anything else in particular, like programming again, or for anything related to computer repair etc.). I imagine in the future I could easily enough get hardware with a higher gen card features.

The problems I'm having, though, are alot of weird visual annomolies. I get white squares or some other similar anomoly on the windows load screen, and some stuff on my icons or mouse pointer, or with anything running certain style graphics like in diablo 2 or Supreme commanders. With Supreme Commander it happens in the game and in the menu screen but I don't think on the intro video. Same with diablo, I believe. And some types of movies files have visual problems in Winamp or windows media player, for example, while others don't. sometimes it is alot of green all over the images or in the case in the one i have just opened to test weird verticle color bar lines with differnt collor arangements. (There are some white ones that are fairly indistinct and smaller, and others that are brighter on top and darker on the bottom with a small spot in the middle that is brightest area. Sometimes it is red on top, blue in the middle, and purple where it merges in the small center area. The rest of them are green or combo of green with the other bars colors showing through in about 50 mini lines going throught the wholebar that look like basically an overlapped version of the two. And they flicker back and forth between those two color arangments basically. Especially when I move my mouse pointer over the video area in full screen) The general problems change a little with different drivers but they don't go away. And I have no idea what any of that would mean, specifically,anyway.

[Baneblade]

I dont even get why they are trying so hard.

[Hamma]

I've disabled new user registrations for a while.

[Hamma]

Actually.. I just enabled User Moderation that way I can ban them and delete their accounts.

[Baneblade]

lol, but the greater mystery remains.