Is it worth it performance wise?

GobblesGobbles Ventura California
edited January 2006 in Hardware
I have a:
Abit NF7S with a 2500+

would it be worth it performance wise to swap out to a

P4 3E on a 865chipset



Its gonna be a bit before I can do a complete system upgrade so I was thinking in the interim I have a P4 3.0E and I could pick up a decent 865 mobo for under 100 bucks. Would it be worth it performance wise to switch over? It would become my gaming rig with a 9800xt and 1.5 gig ram.

your thoughts and comments?
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Comments

  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2005
    From what I've read a lot of the 865 mobo's pwm circuitry isn't up to the task of running a Pressie. Research which 865 boards will run a Pressie without smoking. As far as speed, it will be faster than your 2500+ only if you overclock the piss out of it. That 30 stage pipeline really takes a performance toll. I would say you'd need to see at least 3.5 GHz to see a noticable performance increase. You also have to factor in a premium hsf too, especially if you want to fold with a Pressie.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    ts gonna be a bit before I can do a complete system upgrade so I was thinking in the interim I have a P4 3.0E and I could pick up a decent 865 mobo for under 100 bucks. Would it be worth it performance wise to switch over? It would become my gaming rig with a 9800xt and 1.5 gig ram.
    Yes and no. Gaming? Won't be that big of a difference. Multitasking would be about the same. Just as Mudd remarked, that nasty P4 architecture takes its toll because of the long pipeline. Here's the 'yes' component: if you run the CPU in hyperthreading mode and do heavy multitasking, then the P4 will have a noticeable advantage. If you are Folder and run two instances of Folding@Home for the real and virtual CPUs under hyperthreading, you will see a big benefit. It would absolutely smoke your AMD 2500 in Folding. But... for ordinary day to day useage, it probably would not be worth your effort to switch. MtGoat had another valid point. Prescott's are a pain to cool, ESPECIALLY if you overclock. If you do decide to switch, consider an 875 chipset board. If you look in trading forums and Ebay, you could find an Abit IC7 for under $100. The Abit IC7 is the best motherboard I've ever used, AMD or Intel.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    You can get the cheapest 3000+ A64 for around $100 or less, used ,and an Asrock mobo for $60 that can carry your videocard for a bit longer. You'll get $50 for the combo you already have i think.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2005
    Yeah, I just bought that Asrock Dual SATA2 board that Mack is talking about last time in and so far it's a winner. Not great on overclocking features but a pretty nice board for under $70 delivered and you can stay with your AGP vid card for now, then upgrade to PCI-e later without changing out the mobo.

    Also, if you have a decent hsf on your present rig you might get $75-100 for the combo of mobo, proc and hsf.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited January 2006
    is the asrock board a solid board. Im really more concerned about stability than anything else. I also take it that I am going to see far better peformance from the A64 3000+ vs. the P4 3.0E

    I plan on keeping the 2500+ and the nf7s and make a htpc/tivo out of it. I can get a hauppage pvr 250 for around 50 from my friend at MS. they get them for wicked cheap and I have Winxp mce.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited January 2006
    is the ULi chipset any good?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    The ULI chipsets have been getting good reviews. They are NOT yet ready for high performance boards, but are decent. Asrock has a spotty history. Some folks have done very well with them, but they are not on par with the major brands (Asus, MSI, Intel, Epox) with respect to stability. For pure stability without having a great desire to overclock, it's hard to beat MSI. They are silky smooth and simple to set up. I've used MSI with Intel and AMD setups and just can't say enough good things about them, except for overclocking. Asus would be another good pick for stability, but will probably have a price premium compared to MSI. Is your P4 3.0E Socket 478?

    EDIT: Muddocktor mentioned that his Asrock runs just fine. He's ahead of me with motherboard experience, so I'll defer to him. Mudd also remarked that you'd need to overclock the P4 3.0 to match the performance of the AMD 2500+. For all around performance and for gaming, yes, that's probably correct. For Folding@Home performance though, the P4 3.0e in hyperthreading mode with two instances of Folding will simply smoke the 2500+. Each of my HT P4 machines double the points production of my 2800+ box.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    Hey, look what I just found at Newegg! Asus P4P800-E Deluxe

    Pentium 4/Celeron
    Northwood/Prescott
    Hyperthreading
    Intel 865P/E chipset (NOT SIS/ULI/VIA, a REAL chipset)
    PATA & SATA slots
    Gigabit LAN
    decent overclocking BIOS

    $83 at Newegg, refurbished. I don't think you'll find a better board for the money. Newegg has a pretty good reputation with their refurbished boards. If you already have cables, the refurbs are usually just fine. You just won't get the accessories that usually come with a retail board. No biggy, just download the manual and motherboard drivers from Asus.

    If I were looking to build another Socket 478 now, I'd look first for an Abit IC7, but I'd be tempted with this P4P800-E.
  • madmatmadmat
    edited January 2006
    Asrock = ASUS budget brand...Just thought I'd toss that in.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited January 2006
    Yes, I was referring to the P4 as being his gaming rig, not folding. For folding, Leo's spot on; the P4 will run rings around the 2500. The HT feature of a P4 does give it a psuedo-DC/dual proc feel though when multitasking. That's one reason why I stuck with my old P4 system as my primary rig for 2 years, until replacing it at Christmas with a DC Opteron.
  • madmatmadmat
    edited January 2006
    I went from a 2500+ to my current 2.4C (lightly massaged) and my gaming performance went up but I'm running a proc with 1/3 shorter pipelines too.

    My suggestion would be to try to find a Northwood proc instead of a Presscott, it has pipelines of 20 stages rather than 30 (31?) so it's decidedly faster clock for clock plus it doesn't create quite as much heat.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited January 2006
    The thing is, Matt, is that he already has the Presshot, so that cuts the cost down considerably. Otherwise, it would be better to build an A64 system right now.

    As far as the Asrock board and stability, I will be able to tell you more tomorrow, Gobbles. I'll be coming in from the rig tomorrow and I will check and see how it's been running in the 2 weeks I've been at work. I just got that system up and running the last time I was in from the rig.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited January 2006
    actually I have some P4 3.0's with the 533 bus. Are those what you are talking about?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    Are those what you are talking about?
    What who's talking about? We were talkin 'a' P4 3.0C, now we have more than one? The 'C' version should be 400MHz FSB (800MHz DDR). It would be a better performer than the 533MHz (2 X 266).
  • madmatmadmat
    edited January 2006
    You have a 3.06B most likely. Still has HT and has a shorter pipeline than a Prescott. You might give it a whirl and see which has more poop to it. The FSB is 133x4 as opposed to 200x4 (the P4's are quad pumped) but the later ones OC pretty well provided you have the cooling.

    On the upside even at stock it will push the PWM section less to run the 3.06 than the Prescott since it'll draw less current. That translates into longer board life and less heat.
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited January 2006
    For a gaming rig, I would just stick with your barton IMO. I assume your 2500+ is overclocked to at least 2.2GHz? The P4 will not be noticablly faster in that case. With a 9800 series graphics card (although still a good performer) your CPU is likely not as much of a performance bottleneck when compared to the graphics card.

    Also, I think if you want to keep 1.5GB of ram, you'll have to give up dual channel operation on the P4 which will further tax it's performance. The NF7-S is also not operating in dual channel, but there is no performance benefit on socket-A DC anyhow. Just something else to think about.

    As everyone else mentioned.. they make killer folding machines though. I had a 2.8 prescott folding at work that was a beast with HT turned on.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited January 2006
    lemonlime wrote:
    For a gaming rig, I would just stick with your barton IMO. I assume your 2500+ is overclocked to at least 2.2GHz? The P4 will not be noticablly faster in that case. With a 9800 series graphics card (although still a good performer) your CPU is likely not as much of a performance bottleneck when compared to the graphics card.

    Also, I think if you want to keep 1.5GB of ram, you'll have to give up dual channel operation on the P4 which will further tax it's performance. The NF7-S is also not operating in dual channel, but there is no performance benefit on socket-A DC anyhow. Just something else to think about.

    As everyone else mentioned.. they make killer folding machines though. I had a 2.8 prescott folding at work that was a beast with HT turned on.

    No not overclocked. My barton is stock. As far as P4's I have 3x 3.0 533
    http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/details.asp?sspec=sl6pg&procfam=483&pkgtype=all&sysbusspd=all&corspd=all
    and 1x 3.0E and 1x 2.8 celeron, unfortunately I cant afford motherboards for them, nor do I have room for them at home.
  • lastsightlastsight Miami/Miramar
    edited January 2006
    yeah go with what he said its worth it
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited January 2006
    Gobbles wrote:
    No not overclocked. My barton is stock. As far as P4's I have 3x 3.0 533
    http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/details.asp?sspec=sl6pg&procfam=483&pkgtype=all&sysbusspd=all&corspd=all
    and 1x 3.0E and 1x 2.8 celeron, unfortunately I cant afford motherboards for them, nor do I have room for them at home.

    Is there any reason you have not tried to overclock? I know you mentioned stability, but I'm very confident that you could get 24/7 stability and a significant overclock out of that barton. That could negate just about any performance gain from the P4 IMO, and won't cost you much if anything. Is it a mobile chip by any chance?
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited January 2006
    I can think of a few reasons he shouldn't overclock unless he keeps it pretty modest. We don't know what memory he has and at a certain point he will be on the no-win side of the power/$ to performance/gain ratio. I personally don't think overclocking is an optimal solution but more of a bragging sport- sort of like what cars were back in the 50s-70s. At a certain point, you're going to suck down more gas, $ in parts, and insurance premiums (risks) than it's really worth. As for folding improvement it makes more sense to me to add CPUs at rating than it does to crank a questionable amount out of what you have,

    That said, the 2500 Barton is an excellent overclocker. But in a few short months back then you could score a 2800+ or 3000+ for about the same money and with probably what you saved on your power bill. He may also have to buy new memory and it might simply not be worth it for what he wants to do ... which is... folding?

    For that matter, you could get about the same overclocking benefit from the Pentium- starting with the "P4Cs", they became decent OCrs.

    I have a 3000+ Barton. My son has a 2.8GHz P4C and that Pentium at stock beat my AMD in every category that mattered- except, noticeably, the Integer math. Intels at that time just ruled the floating-point, cache, multi-threading and memory xfer roosts. I actually was beginning to think AMD might have sunk back then. If I remember the 865PE (P4P800) correctly, you also had to kick it in that pants with a jumper or BIOS setting to get Hyperthreading to work. Still, personally- I'd save the $ for something a bit more "neo" to ADD- especially since I sense firesales on 939 systems later this year.

    In short, Gobbles, I think it's a crap shoot that doesn't make a lot of difference at this point. I'd save for the "new hotness". Lots of issues I haven't thought about in quite a while and may be obselete, but I'd start to leave that technology behind. Will you get a performance boost?- with a little work, yes. Is it worth it- I just don't think so unless I could find someone to trade. But it's your call.
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited January 2006
    Qeldroma wrote:
    I can think of a few reasons he shouldn't overclock unless he keeps it pretty modest. We don't know what memory he has and at a certain point he will be on the no-win side of the power/$ to performance/gain ratio. I personally don't think overclocking is an optimal solution but more of a bragging sport- sort of like what cars were back in the 50s-70s. At a certain point, you're going to suck down more gas, $ in parts, and insurance premiums (risks) than it's really worth. As for folding it makes more sense to me to add CPUs at rating than it does to crank a questionable amount out of what you have,

    To each his/her own, but I like to tap the extra (sometimes plentiful) headroom in a chip :). I don't think I'd consider it a 'bragging sport' in the context I was speaking of. I'm not suggesting that he pump 1.9v through his barton and move to heavier duty cooling. I was suggesting a 24/7 stable setting at stock or close to stock vcore. He's got some great OC'ing hardware and the NF7 was practically designed for that purpose too.

    Many bartons and all mobile chips have unlocked multipliers and the clock speed can be increased without even touching the FSB and memory clock speed. He wouldn't need to worry about his memory in that case. When vcore is left as-is, I doubt that power consumption would increase much, and I would seriously doubt that an overclocked barton at close to stock vcore would draw anywhere near as much electricity as an intel prescott based chip at load.

    I just thought that a mild overclock would provide the small performance boost that he was looking for (being primarily a gaming PC) that would negate the benefit of the P4. Plus it would save him the ~$100 cost of a new board. If this was going to be a folding rig, the P4 would be a better choice, and I totally agree with you there.

    I know that not everyone is comfortable overclocking and that understandable. Being the geek that I am, overclocking is the first thing I think of when someone says 'performance boost' I guess :D:buck:
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited January 2006
    lemonlime wrote:
    To each his/her own, but I like to tap the extra (sometimes plentiful) headroom in a chip :). :D:buck:

    Actually, I agree. I think we're saying pretty much the same thing. I just don't know if he has the memory- it may simply be @rating memory which means he may not get much out of it before his system goes unstable. And he is also looking at a 3.0P4E (if he gets the right mobo) and to even get warm to that performance he's going to have to crank the snot out of a 2500.


    I just like challenging the convention wisdom sometimes ;)
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited January 2006
    Going by Gobble's first post, this rig is primarily a gaming rig, not folding, so I based my answers on that fact. For sure, the P4 will smoke the AXP processor when combined with QMD work, but that's not the machine's primary purpose. Lemonlime also brings up a valid point when asking about overclocking as there is a lot of performance left on the table with a lot of the XP2500's produced without even having to tweak vcore. I used to have an earlier XP2500 (which now resides in IC 11) that all it needed to run at XP3200 settings was to simply bump up the fsb speed to 200 fsb from it's stock 166 fsb with no vcore adjustment needed for stability. As for cooling, if you aren't bumping up the vcore to overclock, your present cooling should work just fine as long as it wasn't real marginal to begin with (like the all aluminum retail AMD heatsinks that came with a lot of the lower clocked AXP's). Your wattage used by the processor doesn't take dramatic jumps until you start bumping up the vcore. According to the Erol's processor electrical specifications page, the wattage difference between the XP2500 and XP3200 Tbred procs is only 8.5 watts (from 68.3 to 76.8 watts) so you aren't talking a major heat increase due to the minor overclock. However, it also brings his memory bandwidth up (unless he has some cheap/older ram that won't do 200 fsb speeds to run synchronously with the fsb) and if he is now running the memory asynchronously with the fsb speed (ram at 200 fsb and proc at 166 fsb), he will see even more improvement due to his present asynchronous ram/proc fsb timing issues. Of course, Gobbles might not be comfortable trying to overclock and that's cool, but there's no harm in trying to get every last bit of (almost free) performance out of what you buy and if it doesn't like the overclocked settings, you haven't spent a bunch of money for little gain (in Gobble's case here).
    Qeldroma wrote:
    And he is also looking at a 3.0P4E (if he gets the right mobo) and to even get warm to that performance he's going to have to crank the snot out of a 2500.

    If you are talking about the 3.0E, I will respectfully disagree with you about the unoverclocked performance of it vs the unoverclocked performance of that 2500. Unless you ramp the speed of a Pressie beyond 3.5 GHz, they perform worse than a Northwood, so I don't think he would see any noticeable performance increase over his present setup. He would be better off with those 533 fsb Northies than the 3.0E Pressie at unoverclocked speeds, IMO. Also, his performance with a P4 will vary at least as greatly as with the 2500 due to ram issues. If he has ram that can't run a 200 fsb speed, he will see a big hit in memory bandwidth on the P4 if he has to run a divider when the fsb speed is set at 200 for that 3.0E and furthermore, the ram bandwidth deficiency will be felt far harder than the 2500 due to the architecture of Netburst and that absurdly long 31 stage pipeline of the Pressie.

    One other performance issue to touch on for upgrading to a P4 board (it's already been touched on but I want to put in my $.02 worth ;) ) is the memory issue. Right now, Gobbles has stated he has 1.5 gigs of ram and that means 3-512 MB sticks in the NF7-S. Unless he loses 1 stick of ram or buys a stick of ram, he will be running his ram in single channel mode on the P4, which makes a huge difference in performance on a P4, since it limits memory bandwidth so much. Single channel performance on an AXP isn't much of an issue since the platform doesn't really require a high memory bandwidth but the P4 (all flavors, not just the Pressie) really need all the memory bandwidth you can give them or see a noticable performance drop. Also, if he goes with 4-512 MB sticks in an i865 board, he won't be able to use the PAT features of the i865 board, since they don't work well with 4 sticks installed (that's my personal experience with an IS7 board, but the lack of PAT doesn't turn in a noticable degredation in performance in everyday use).

    Just thought I'd add a few more thoughts to this upgrade thread.:vimp:
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited January 2006
    Lets see if I can fill in a few gaps.

    1. Barton 2500+ @ stock with ABIT NF7-S V2.
    2. Thermaltake volcano loud as hell HSF
    3. 2x512 Kingston value ram pc2700 at stock voltage. timings are default however I have run them at 2 3 3 8 with out issues that some volts will fix. 1x512 corsair xms c2pt pc3200 running at 2700.
    4. AGED 300w Antec power supply, powering 2 drives, 5 case fans, hsf, 2 optical drives, and the aftermarket video cooler for my 9800xt, which is also on the psu. I think im going to get an antec sonata case with a 380w, its only 60 bucks at frys right now.
    5. I have never overclocked and have no clue where to start.
    6. I get decent performance now but I was looking to hold over till this summer to upgrade. I just wanted to know if I could squeeze some extra FPS by changing to the 3.0e
    7. All my folding is done at work, where they foot the power bill.
    8. Im not opposed to some over clocking.
    9. Im going to get the sonata case, which will reduce power needs as ill be dialing back on the fans and optical drives.
    10. My gaming rig does not fold.
    11. My barton is not a mobile, its a retail box unit from after the multiplier lock down.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    2. Thermaltake volcano loud as hell HSF
    If you decide to continue/upgrade/rebuild and need a better (and much quieter) heatsink, see me. I've got an extra Zalman 7000AlCu.

    BTW, Muddocktor's last post was golden.
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited January 2006
    muddocktor wrote:

    If you are talking about the 3.0E, I will respectfully disagree with you about the unoverclocked performance of it vs the unoverclocked performance of that 2500. Unless you ramp the speed of a Pressie beyond 3.5 GHz, they perform worse than a Northwood, so I don't think he would see any noticeable performance increase over his present setup. He would be better off with those 533 fsb Northies than the 3.0E Pressie at unoverclocked speeds, IMO.

    You know, mud, I'm going to trust you on this one since I haven't played with Pentiums in quite a while and I've been impressed with your knowledge on these and other matters. My knowledge is pretty dated in this regard and is based on

    This comparison

    which simply says that the performance differences are basically none between Prescott and Northwood. Regardless, I never liked Intels' decision to part with the Northwood core and have seen Intel have one good idea too many in a couple of arenas. I was simply impressed with Northwoods at the time over AMD XPs (both of whom I beat to death with Sandra). I'm with Leo- good post- thanks.

    And Gobbles, thanks for spelling it out. If this is the case, then I think that this is probably not a good idea. And I'd take that Zalman.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    was simply impressed with Northwoods at the time
    I was, and am. Northwood was Intel's last very good desktop CPU. The only reason I have this D820 (dual core Presshot) is because it was a bargain price on Ebay.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited January 2006
    Well I changed out cases. I kinda did it fast so I will have to go back some time when I am not tired and wire it nice. I got an antec sonata with the 380w TP 2.0, yep they come with 2.0 true powers now. 65 bucks at frys. So atleast I got a little more power than my tired 300w antec. 2 x120mm moving air, 1 less optical drive but I really did not need a creative 16x dvd player and a plextor 716a burner. 1 thing off my list to upgrade.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited January 2006
    Gobbles, if you are planning to upgrade to a new system later on in the year, I would advise you to put better cooling on your present setup (like that Zalman of Leo's) and do a little overclocking of your 2500 instead of buying a new mobo for the 3.0E or one of the 3.06/533 Northies you have. The heatsink upgrade would cost much less and also be much easier on the ears than your present hsf and with the NF7-S you have one of the easiest boards to overclock with I've ever messed with. You don't have to worry about the AGP and PCI busses running out of spec with the nf2 chipset because it can lock those speeds to spec while you ease up the fsb speed of the proc. The 2500 is also a real good candidate for overclocking, even your locked proc due to it using a relatively low 11 multi, which is the same multi the XP3200 uses, BTW. The XP3200 simply runs on a 200 fsb instead of the 2500's 166 fsb. Your main problem and holdback on overclocking will most probably be the PC2700 ram you have; I don't know how well that Kingston will like higher fsb speeds. I would suggest a bootable memtest86 disk (either floppy if you have a floppy drive or a bootable CD if you don't) and then ease the fsb up 3-5 MHz and test for memory stability. Upping the vdimm might or might not give you some extra headroom for the ram; it depends of the types of chips used on the sticks of ram you have.

    With all that said, I would suggest that you upgrade your hsf first though as the TT Volcano ain't the best choice around for cooling, by far, and as you said, they are loud as hell. I don't know what kind of deal Leo can swing you for that Zalman, but Zalman does make some quality hsf's. I'm using the all copper version of the one Leo has on my desktop Pentium M rig and it's a very good, quiet hsf and well made.
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited January 2006
    muddocktor wrote:
    ... Your main problem and holdback on overclocking will most probably be the PC2700 ram you have; I don't know how well that Kingston will like higher fsb speeds. ...

    The Value-RAM is their less expensive high-latency stuff. Not very far I bet (<5%) even if he wags his latencies.
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