New CPU make a real Diff?
Hi All,
let me first say this is a great forum. I am a noob, and people here are pretty easy on us noobs.
I am thinking of upping my current CPU. I have a P4 1.5, 512 MB SDRAM, RADEON 9200 w/128 MB SDRAM, 160GB HD (40 GB @5200, 120GB @7200), new DVD Burner, and onboard sound. I see new PC's (mine is 2 years old) ship with 2.6-3.2 Gh CPU's now, depending on the $$ you spend. I basically game online, and cruise forums like this, so would I be wasting my bucks upgrading my CPU, or do you think DDR RAM is a better short-term investment? I won't be buying a whole new PC for another 2 years or so...I don't use real memory crunchers like Photoshop, etc.
Your thoughts are appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Steve
PS or should I put the money in my PRS guitar fund?? LOL
let me first say this is a great forum. I am a noob, and people here are pretty easy on us noobs.
I am thinking of upping my current CPU. I have a P4 1.5, 512 MB SDRAM, RADEON 9200 w/128 MB SDRAM, 160GB HD (40 GB @5200, 120GB @7200), new DVD Burner, and onboard sound. I see new PC's (mine is 2 years old) ship with 2.6-3.2 Gh CPU's now, depending on the $$ you spend. I basically game online, and cruise forums like this, so would I be wasting my bucks upgrading my CPU, or do you think DDR RAM is a better short-term investment? I won't be buying a whole new PC for another 2 years or so...I don't use real memory crunchers like Photoshop, etc.
Your thoughts are appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Steve
PS or should I put the money in my PRS guitar fund?? LOL
0
Comments
but thats the problem with these early P4 machines, they're not extremely upgradeable
It's actually not a Dell- it's a clone made by Cicero (BC, Canada). I bought it from Future Shop. Here is the full spec's, right from Cicero's site, so pardon the syntax if it's wrong-
MotherBoard- MB, GB P4 845, LAN/SND GA-8IDML
CPU- Intel P4-1.5Ghz 478-PPGA 256K L2
Memory PC133 256MB SDRAM DIMM SPECTEK, 16YLES7-133CL3A (upgraded to 512MB)
Hard Drive IDE 5400RPM 40G U100 Max HD, 34098H4 + Maxtor IDE 120GB 7200RPM I installed myself
LG DVD-RAM Super Multi CD-RW, DVD-RAM etc (there are about 10 different acronyms on the box- suffice to say it copies everything but old Duran Duran LP's...lol)
Floppy Drive FD, 1.44, ALPS, DF354H090F
Video Card- Radeon 9200
It seems like no-one in Canada wants to sell CPU's over the counter...None of the major chains do, anyway. I suspect you are right, Baron and Shwaip, the pin config is probably outdated anyway.
Cheers...
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52
If you are in BC then I'd check out Anitec, E-GlobalOnline.com and ATIC.
Thats the same PIN package that the current P4s use. Not sure what your motherboard supports tho.
KF
Actually, my Willamette 1.8 runs on a motherb oard that now runs a PRescott... Problem with older boards is they do not run CPU at low enough voltages and do not give enough wattage at lower voltages as economy ones had PSUs insufficient for the job. But my Willamette WAS a transitional package to 478 pinouts, and did run across gens on boht an IC7-Max3 and on a older Soyo FireDragon which was an i845. Curiously, with my P4 Northwood UNDERCLOCKED to 2.4 GHz, and the BIOS flashed on the Soyo board to most recent, the Northwood ran at 2.4 GHz and at 400 base and was not hurt.
NOT pinouts, power and BIOS detect for proper voltage.
Just as a note, the IC7 Max3 in ohter box runs a Prescott, again pinouts matter NOT and BIOS and power supply low leg capacity determine runability. There were ideas that pinouts might have to be changed, instead power ciruitry on motherboard was changed, and BIOS's written. BUT, a Northwood will run quite stable at underclocking and under-FSB settings done deliberately. Would not do it on thta system, and a Prescott will NOT run on that board. Period. Only maybe an underclocked Northwood-- that would be an experiment, I do not have that Gigabyte board to hand to play with.
And I really do NOT CARE what Thrax has to say, have done what I describe, Linux ran for at least a week each way. I got tired of reauthing XP, and though I own two licenses and two CDs, I only have one XP loaded right now, on the Prescott box, and it is XP Pro SP1 + some of SP2. Linux is on the Northwood box, right now, and the Soyo test was done totally with Linux in a spare case in part to see if that could work and if the PSU I got from Just4PC would do that on that board also.
PINOUT is a non-sequitor for package 478, and Prescotts are available in large-L2 cache HT in package 478, as are Northwoods. Period.
Your suggestions that "Pinouts don't matter" could make this person buy a piece or pieces of equipment that he can't use due to what he has, and YOU would be at fault.
The first edition of the Wilamette chip was socket 423, and <b>millions</b> of socket 423 willamette Pentium 4s were released all the way up to 2GHz. At 1.5GHz it is likely that he has a socket 423 chip (Though 478 is possible), and buying a new motherboard would leave him with a chip incompatible for the motherboard, and vice versa.
It has nothing to do with voltages.
It has nothing to do with BIOS.
It has nothing to do with the operating system.
Don't tell me you don't care what I say when your comments, if taken to heart, could screw someone out of money. "Period."
Perhaps you should add "I'm sorry" or "I stand corrected" to your vocabulary, and apologize to this user for attempting to shaft him.
//EDIT:
It comes to light that the user has a s478 willamette. Lucky for him, though the board only supports up to the obsolete 2.2/400 Northwood, which would make any additional recommendation (Like the Prescott and Northwood suggestions John made) an expensive but hopeless buy.
Guyute, if those are the actual specs for your system, then you might be able to upgrade it to a faster processor. However, if that machine is actually using SDRAM and not DDR SDRAM, then it would be pointless to try to upgrade the processor due to the slow memory installed, which would literally choke a higher clocked P4 so bad to where you would see no real improvement in use. If you think you need to refresh your computer and make it noticably faster, then you will need to invest in a new processor, motherboard and new DDR ram and then you will see a noticable speed improvement. The machine you now have should be adequate for running Office stuff and light gaming with older games and web browsing though.
I just looked up your motherboard on Gigabyte's site and it shows that it will support up to a 2.2 gig Northwood proc, the 2.2A, which is a 400 fsb(actually a 100 fsb quad pumped) part. The specs show it using SDRAM also, which chokes any P4's performance incredibly. If you do get the upgrade fever, the first thing you need to get is a modern motherboard, like an Abit IS7 with 2 matched sticks of DDR for it. You can even use the old 1.5 in it until you get the money together to upgrade it also.
Hope this helps you out.:)
Buying an obsolete northwood p4 on a 400 bus would be like buying a rustbucket when you're in the market for a new car.
The Pentium 4's are bandwidth-hungry, and having SDRAM would stifle the performance of the P4 considerably. Furthermore, having DDR RAM would significantly boost the performance of your computer when coupled with a modern p4 chipset and chip. A Northwood Pentium 4 2.8-3.2 with 256-512MB of PC3200, combined with an Abit IC7 board is a very solid combination delivering performance lightyears beyond what you're using now.
If you're looking to overhaul your system, buying a single component will limit the investment of your money.