Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

I have been asked by a mate to build a 3Ghz P4 system. When I
presented him with the price it was a bit out of his budget. He was
happy to shave the cost when I mentioned OVERCLOCKING.

I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.

1)Which ones should I go for?
2)Is there a particular stepping code I should look out for?
3) OEM or Retail?
4) How much better is a 3Ghz compared to AMD XP3200+ Barton core?
5) He also wants 1Gb of RAM, should I use one stick of DDR 400 of
2x512 DDR 400?

I will be ordering the stuff from ebuyer.com unless someone can think
of anything cheaper.
Thanks for your time guys.

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

"fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:6ec465dd.0404060040.35fa20f0@posting.google.com...
> I have been asked by a mate to build a 3Ghz P4 system. When I
> presented him with the price it was a bit out of his budget. He was
> happy to shave the cost when I mentioned OVERCLOCKING.
>
> I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.
>
> 1)Which ones should I go for?
> 2)Is there a particular stepping code I should look out for?
> 3) OEM or Retail?
> 4) How much better is a 3Ghz compared to AMD XP3200+ Barton core?
> 5) He also wants 1Gb of RAM, should I use one stick of DDR 400 of
> 2x512 DDR 400?
>
> I will be ordering the stuff from ebuyer.com unless someone can think
> of anything cheaper.
> Thanks for your time guys.

For overclocking, the mobile Barton 2500 is hard to beat. It is multiplier
unlocked (unlike the non mobile XPs) and runs at 1.45v. It should outperform
an XP3200 with ease. All for around £70.00 inc VAT.

I have gone for the non mobile XP2500, as the mobiles were not in stock at
the time, but I may get a mobile one also.
--
Doug Ramage

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

"fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message...
> I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.

Don't, that's a bad idea all-round. Get a Hyperthreaded 800MHz FSB P4 2.4C
or 2.6C and overclock that instead.

> 1)Which ones should I go for?

See above.

> 4) How much better is a 3Ghz compared to AMD XP3200+ Barton core?

Jeesh, not getting involved in that one. Far too much potential for it to
descend into an argument.

> 5) He also wants 1Gb of RAM, should I use one stick of DDR 400
> of 2x512 DDR 400?

Look, don't mean to piss on your fire unduly, but are you really sure you
should be building a system for someone else if you don't know the answers
to questions like this already?

The answer is that if you/he actually care about performance, you'll be
using a motherboard with a dual channel memory bus. If this is the case,
you'll obviously be needing a pair of sticks to run it in dual channel mode.

As for whether you'd want DDR400 memory, if you follow the advice above and
go for an 800FSB HT CPU, you'll be looking at DDR466 or better if you want a
reasonable overclock.
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace .nospam with .com in reply address)

The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com
Get the most out of your digital photos www.dabsxpose.com

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

"Richard Hopkins" <richh@dsl.popex.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4072ade9$0$6555$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com...
> "fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message...
> > I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.
>
> Don't, that's a bad idea all-round. Get a Hyperthreaded 800MHz FSB P4 2.4C
> or 2.6C and overclock that instead.

>
> The answer is that if you/he actually care about performance, you'll be
> using a motherboard with a dual channel memory bus. If this is the case,
> you'll obviously be needing a pair of sticks to run it in dual channel
mode.
>
> As for whether you'd want DDR400 memory, if you follow the advice above
and
> go for an 800FSB HT CPU, you'll be looking at DDR466 or better if you want
a
> reasonable overclock.

Absolutely agree.
Global price/performance ratio will be much better with a 800 MHz P4 2.4C
and dual channel than with a 533 Mhz P4 3.0 Ghz without dual channel.
And most P4 2.4C easily overclock up to 2.8 or 3.0 Ghz or even more, without
running hot and requiring advanced cooling.
I compared the 2.4C Ghz with the 2.8 GHz in the same PC and noticed that,
both overclocked at 3.0 GHz, the 2.4 was in average running 3 - 4 °C lower
than the 2.8.
Maybe others could share their experience about this ?

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Richard Hopkins wrote:
> "fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message...
>> I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.
>
> Don't, that's a bad idea all-round. Get a Hyperthreaded 800MHz FSB P4
> 2.4C or 2.6C and overclock that instead.
>

It ain't obvious how the HT are better clockers?

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 14:01:31 GMT, "ElJerid"
<s.vanderhaeghen.nospam@pandora.be> wrote:

>
>"Richard Hopkins" <richh@dsl.popex.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:4072ade9$0$6555$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com...
>> "fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message...
>> > I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.
>>
>> Don't, that's a bad idea all-round. Get a Hyperthreaded 800MHz FSB P4 2.4C
>> or 2.6C and overclock that instead.
>
>>
>> The answer is that if you/he actually care about performance, you'll be
>> using a motherboard with a dual channel memory bus. If this is the case,
>> you'll obviously be needing a pair of sticks to run it in dual channel
>mode.
>>
>> As for whether you'd want DDR400 memory, if you follow the advice above
>and
>> go for an 800FSB HT CPU, you'll be looking at DDR466 or better if you want
>a
>> reasonable overclock.
>
>Absolutely agree.
>Global price/performance ratio will be much better with a 800 MHz P4 2.4C
>and dual channel than with a 533 Mhz P4 3.0 Ghz without dual channel.
>And most P4 2.4C easily overclock up to 2.8 or 3.0 Ghz or even more, without
>running hot and requiring advanced cooling.
>I compared the 2.4C Ghz with the 2.8 GHz in the same PC and noticed that,
>both overclocked at 3.0 GHz, the 2.4 was in average running 3 - 4 °C lower
>than the 2.8.
>Maybe others could share their experience about this ?
>

running my 2.8C at 3.33ghz. The limiting factor is the ram which is
running at a ratio of 1:1. Ram is corsair pc3700 dual channel.

The CPU can easily go higher but I would have to either get faster
ram or change the ratio to 5:4.

Locust

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

"fair4all" wrote
> I have been asked by a mate to build a 3Ghz P4 system. When I
> presented him with the price it was a bit out of his budget. He was
> happy to shave the cost when I mentioned OVERCLOCKING.


Hi,.
there is an interesting article here:

[H]ardOCP - Overclocking the Prescott 2.4A :
"The Pentium 4 2.4A CPU comes through with shining results in our
overclocking tests. No fooling!"

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjAz

I went for the P4c 2.6GHz. I have built 3 nForce2 systems so I am quite new
with the latest INTEL stuff (well read though ).

With regards to Dual-Channel on the Athlon platform, it doesn't begin to
compare to the Dual-Channel on the latest INTEL mobos. if you run with one
DIMM on the nForce2 you will loose just a little bandwidth, however running
with one DIMM on a current INTEL Mobo will loose you nearly 50% bandwidth.
INTEL Dual-Channel system is far superior, always run with two sticks.

I haven't got into deep testing yet, but the P4 system is faster than the
Athlon systems (@2.2GHz 440DDR). For example AquaMark runs allot faster and
smoother on my new INTEL rig than it did on my other AMD machines, same
graphics card (Atlantis 9800), but the INTEL system did have 1GB of Ram vs
the 512MB on the Athlon rigs.

Are you U.K based or U.S? I do use Ebuyer allot, good site and service,
nothing ever returned!. If you are U.K based I can recommend a few sites. .
..
--
Wayne ][
<Sign on door reads: Please Do No Disturb! Pentium 4 assembly in progress!>

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 14:17:15 +0000, Default wrote:

> It ain't obvious how the HT are better clockers?

The 533 non-HT ones overclock well in my experience but it only really got
good towards the end of the run when Intel had perfected the whole process
and by that stage probably most of the chips could do around 3.0 ghz
regardless of the rating on the box. Even then, if you want to increase
the chances that your cpu will overclock well, find out the batch codes
for the best performing Intel p4s from somewhere like www.abxzone.com and
buy from a shop or fair where you can inspect the batch codes on the box
first.

In addition, if you have a well-performing 533 board with a processor
overclocked to around 3.0 ghz, think twice before updating the whole thing
to 800 mhz. A board with an 800 mhz cpu will run faster by quite a bit,
but not massively faster at the same cpu rating. In the circs, it might be
better to wait a bit and then update to something like an Athlon64 later
in the year. The money saved can be put towards a better graphics card,
for example.

Just my 2 cents.



Fish

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

"fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:6ec465dd.0404060040.35fa20f0@posting.google.com...
> I have been asked by a mate to build a 3Ghz P4 system. When I
> presented him with the price it was a bit out of his budget. He was
> happy to shave the cost when I mentioned OVERCLOCKING.
>
> I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.

Don't waste your time... Get the 800FSB with the HT. A 2.4 or 2.6Ghz chip
should do fine. My own 2.6 runs fine at almost 3.2Ghz.

> 3) OEM or Retail?

I have the retail and the HS/Fan are fine on my CPU. I'm sure with a better
HS/Fan that I could go faster, but what I have works.

> 4) How much better is a 3Ghz compared to AMD XP3200+ Barton core?
> 5) He also wants 1Gb of RAM, should I use one stick of DDR 400 of
> 2x512 DDR 400?

Tell him to make up his mind. Does he want a good machine or a cheap
machine? Get 2x 256meg DDR400 (DDR 433 or better if you can afford it) If he
can't afford a decent chip, why does he need a gig of memory?

> I will be ordering the stuff from ebuyer.com unless someone can think
> of anything cheaper.

Without an idea of budget or what the machine is for, it's kind of hard to
suggest anything.

My machine is an 800mhz P4 2.6Ghz chip @ 245Mhz (= 3.18Ghz) and 2x 256meg
DDR533 running 1:1 with the CPU and an ATI 9600XT. I'm kicking myself in the
ass for not getting a faster HDD as it REALLY bogs the system down (60gig,
7200 with 2meg cache). Unfortunately I was stuck with the old drive because
of budget, but I can upgrade the drive anytime. I'm currently trying to
decide on a pair of 34gig Raptors or a single 74gig Raptor.

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

Fish wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 14:17:15 +0000, Default wrote:
>
>> It ain't obvious how the HT are better clockers?
>
> The 533 non-HT ones overclock well in my experience but it only
> really got good towards the end of the run when Intel had perfected
> the whole process and by that stage probably most of the chips could
> do around 3.0 ghz regardless of the rating on the box. Even then, if
> you want to increase the chances that your cpu will overclock well,
> find out the batch codes for the best performing Intel p4s from
> somewhere like www.abxzone.com and buy from a shop or fair where you
> can inspect the batch codes on the box first.
>
> In addition, if you have a well-performing 533 board with a processor
> overclocked to around 3.0 ghz, think twice before updating the whole
> thing to 800 mhz. A board with an 800 mhz cpu will run faster by
> quite a bit, but not massively faster at the same cpu rating. In the
> circs, it might be better to wait a bit and then update to something
> like an Athlon64 later in the year. The money saved can be put
> towards a better graphics card, for example.
>
> Just my 2 cents.
>
>
>
> Fish

precisely the point..

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

"Noozer" <postmaster@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:eIEcc.39563$Ig.4281@pd7tw2no...
>
> "fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:6ec465dd.0404060040.35fa20f0@posting.google.com...
> > I have been asked by a mate to build a 3Ghz P4 system. When I
> > presented him with the price it was a bit out of his budget. He was
> > happy to shave the cost when I mentioned OVERCLOCKING.
> >
> > I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.
>
> Don't waste your time... Get the 800FSB with the HT. A 2.4 or 2.6Ghz chip
> should do fine. My own 2.6 runs fine at almost 3.2Ghz.
>
> > 3) OEM or Retail?
>
> I have the retail and the HS/Fan are fine on my CPU. I'm sure with a
better
> HS/Fan that I could go faster, but what I have works.
>
> > 4) How much better is a 3Ghz compared to AMD XP3200+ Barton core?
> > 5) He also wants 1Gb of RAM, should I use one stick of DDR 400 of
> > 2x512 DDR 400?
>
> Tell him to make up his mind. Does he want a good machine or a cheap
> machine? Get 2x 256meg DDR400 (DDR 433 or better if you can afford it) If
he
> can't afford a decent chip, why does he need a gig of memory?
>
> > I will be ordering the stuff from ebuyer.com unless someone can think
> > of anything cheaper.
>
> Without an idea of budget or what the machine is for, it's kind of hard to
> suggest anything.
>
> My machine is an 800mhz P4 2.6Ghz chip @ 245Mhz (= 3.18Ghz) and 2x 256meg
> DDR533 running 1:1 with the CPU and an ATI 9600XT. I'm kicking myself in
the
> ass for not getting a faster HDD as it REALLY bogs the system down (60gig,
> 7200 with 2meg cache). Unfortunately I was stuck with the old drive
because
> of budget, but I can upgrade the drive anytime. I'm currently trying to
> decide on a pair of 34gig Raptors or a single 74gig Raptor.
>
>
I say the same here..
Get HT Tech, P4c 800 FSB
I Have a 2.6 @ 3.33 GHz
The Odd thing here on my system is my ram.
2x128 PC3400 (DDR400) Kingston Value
2x128 PC2100 (DDR266) (Cheap.) Spec Tek....
Note, the Spec Tek can do almost this much by it's self..
It just might be able to, I've not tested it by it's self since I got the
Kingston Ram.
Bus speed of ram is 340 MHz
Speed by CPU-Z is 170.9
I've had this thing running 3.35 already, but I changed some stuff around
not
so long ago, I don't know if I have too much power to vcore, or what it is.
But I'm not as stable as I was...

I Don't suggest Pushing a P4c 2.6 GHz this far though. Not unless your going
to use h2o.
I don't water cool everything, but I do have extra fans, I even put an extra
fan on my Radiator.
The thing has three fans on it.

Huh?


Sorry for that.
It is good to go for a P4C800FSB 2.6 GHz Should be able to hit 3.06 GHz
easy.
Denny. :-) With a smile, 33 going on 34, but I'm still in my teens. :-)
How I know it might be too much power? Sisoftware Sandra marks went up
a bit further then I thought they should.

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

"fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:6ec465dd.0404060040.35fa20f0@posting.google.com...
> I have been asked by a mate to build a 3Ghz P4 system. When I
> presented him with the price it was a bit out of his budget. He was
> happy to shave the cost when I mentioned OVERCLOCKING.
>
> I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.
>
> 1)Which ones should I go for?
> 2)Is there a particular stepping code I should look out for?
> 3) OEM or Retail?
> 4) How much better is a 3Ghz compared to AMD XP3200+ Barton core?
> 5) He also wants 1Gb of RAM, should I use one stick of DDR 400 of
> 2x512 DDR 400?
>
> I will be ordering the stuff from ebuyer.com unless someone can think
> of anything cheaper.
> Thanks for your time guys.


This is my 2.4c 800mhz fsb with my modest overclock. Notice the mem is
running in 5:4 so at 250MHZ fsb the mem is at 200(x2DDR)! Same as stock .
The only thing OC'd is the CPU

CPU-Z version 1.21.


CPU(s)
Number of CPUs 1

Code Name Northwood
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
Family / Model / Stepping F 2 9
Extended Family / Model 0 0
Brand ID 9
Package mPGA-478
Core Stepping D1
Technology 0.13 µ
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2
CPU Clock Speed 3000.2 MHz
Clock multiplier x 12.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 250.0 MHz
Bus Speed 1000.1 MHz
L1 Data Cache 8 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 64 Bytes line
size
L1 Trace Cache 12 Kµops, 8-way set associative
L2 Cache 512 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 3000.2 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 256 bits



Mainboard and chipset
Motherboard manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
Motherboard model P4P800, Rev 1.xx
BIOS vendor American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS revision 080009
BIOS release date 02/23/2004
Chipset Intel i865P/PE/G/i848P rev. A2
Southbridge Intel 82801EB (ICH5) rev. A2
Sensor chip Winbond W83627THF
FSB Select 800 MHz
Performance Mode disabled

AGP Status enabled, rev. 3.0
AGP Data Transfert Rate 8x
AGP Side Band Addressing supported, enabled
AGP Aperture Size 128 MBytes



Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 1024 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 200.0 MHz
FSBRAM 5:4
CAS# Latency 2.0 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 3 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 6 clocks
# of memory modules 4
Module 0 Corsair DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 256 MBytes
Module 1 Corsair DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 256 MBytes
Module 2 Corsair DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 256 MBytes
Module 3 Corsair DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 256 MBytes

Archived from groups: uk.comp.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking (More info?)

"Richard Hopkins" <richh@dsl.popex.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4072ade9$0$6555$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com...
> "fair4all" <dkny8282@hotmail.com> wrote in message...
> > I was looking at the 533 FSB CPUs without hyper threading.
>
> Don't, that's a bad idea all-round. Get a Hyperthreaded 800MHz FSB P4 2.4C
> or 2.6C and overclock that instead.
>
> > 1)Which ones should I go for?
>
> See above.
>
> > 4) How much better is a 3Ghz compared to AMD XP3200+ Barton core?
>
> Jeesh, not getting involved in that one. Far too much potential for it to
> descend into an argument.
>
> > 5) He also wants 1Gb of RAM, should I use one stick of DDR 400
> > of 2x512 DDR 400?
>
> Look, don't mean to piss on your fire unduly, but are you really sure you
> should be building a system for someone else if you don't know the answers
> to questions like this already?
>
> The answer is that if you/he actually care about performance, you'll be
> using a motherboard with a dual channel memory bus. If this is the case,
> you'll obviously be needing a pair of sticks to run it in dual channel
mode.
>
> As for whether you'd want DDR400 memory, if you follow the advice above
and
> go for an 800FSB HT CPU, you'll be looking at DDR466 or better if you want
a
> reasonable overclock.
> --
>
>
> Richard Hopkins
> Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
> (replace .nospam with .com in reply address)
>
> The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com
> Get the most out of your digital photos www.dabsxpose.com
>
>


Richard,

building a PC is a bit like lego, the hardest part is probably purchasing
the components ie deciding what you want to do.